Fate Grand Order: Alternative
by Seiker Hikaru
Summary: There are innumerable histories that exist. Even the smallest branches can have meaning to them. One person lived rather than died, for example. "Proper history" is not so easily defined on observation. One such branch is this: A boy with eyes filled with stars is present when history crashes down. And so starts another possibility in hope of saving history from incineration.
1. Prologue

Fate/Grand Order Alternative

 **Prologue:** **End of an Era**

A feeling like a shock to his system aroused the young man from slumber, his speckled dark blue eyes shooting open without a hint of grogginess or blurred vision, his eyes immediately registering the page of a book over his eyes, one word sticking out on it: _Flauros._

"Ugh… I feel asleep, didn't I?" The young man grumbled to himself as his left hand moved up and grabbed the book as he sat up, clapping the thick item shut, the cover reading _"Ars Goetia",_ the young man placing the item onto the pile of several other books stacked up near the couch he was laying on, sighing as he ran a hand through the loose strands of white hair topping his head, ruffling the strands to get them to fall about as they usually did, the almost translucent loacks managing to stand out against his snowy pale skin. "How long has it been?"

Though as his hand slid into his pocket, he stopped for a moment. That feeling of shock that had woken him up, something about it was still lingering in his mind.

" _Something's up? Here? How?"_ The young man sighed as he moved off the couch, his eyes scanning around the expansive library around him, stacked high shelves of books stretching to each end of the room and lining each wall, leaving study spaces like the one he was in strewn throughout the spacious room that stretched up to a second floor with even more shelves lining it's walls.

Sighing to himself again, he grabbed the white jacket that he'd discarded onto a nearby chair, loosely throwing the item on and leaving the paired belts of the chest to hang loosely like the rest of it,pulling back his jacket's sleeve a bit to reveal a wristband, swiping it over the pane, al ring sounding as a message ran across it.

 _Thank you for visiting, Eil Coltheart._

"That has got to be the most redundant thing about this place." Eil muttered, stepping out from the quiet but warm space of the library and into the cold, steely hallway of the rest of the facility, the window that came immediately before him revealing nothing but an expanse of pure white as far as the eye could see, the feeling instantly changing from something welcome and familiar, to cold and business like, added only be the deafening quiet he was surrounded by.

The facility known as Chaldea. Tucked neatly away in the mountains of Antartica, away from any prying eyes not belonging to the Mage's Association or the UN, moving underground and into the mountain it was built into itself, a place where, in a true oddity of their time, both magi and scientists gathered in a joint effort, something that typically didn't _happen_ in their world.

" _If the time is right… then those reyshift experiments should be starting about now."_ Eil put a hand on his chin as he looked at the time on his phone, probably one of the few modern-day devices in this facility brought in from the outside world, at least belonging to a mage. They weren't typically the most tech savvy types, though Eil was something of an exception to that often-true stereotype. _"Well, Marie's gonna be pissed off enough as is… might as well barge in and watch. Maybe I'll find out what that shock was."_

With a curt turn on his heel and barely putting his right hand in his pocket, his eyes briefly turned to the slight reflection in the window, his eyes drifting down to his right hand and the mark on it, a deep red in color, shaped as a sword surrounded by parallel wing shaped marks, then shoving his hand deeper into his pocket and proceeding onward.

The walk was devoid of anything but the occasional echo of his footsteps, though as he got closer and closer to the memorized location of the central command room, the buzzing feeling that had persisted since he woke up began to get stronger and stronger, going from a mere buzz in the back of his skull to a nearly splitting headache, enough to get him to slump against the wall a bit as he put a hand over an eye, the feeling still there but dulling to an annoying throb, his arm slumping down and hanging loosely as a drop of sweat fell from his face.

"I didn't catch something did I?" Eil muttered, clapping his hands to his cheeks a bit to straighten himself out, but he also couldn't deny he suddenly felt several times hotter than before, which made no sense since the facility tended to be on the cooler side even if someone were to turn the heaters on… rather, it felt like something in him was burning, screaming at him from within, "Seriously, what the hell?"

Looking up as his hands slid down the thin sides of his face, he looked up to see the tag on the door above to read "Central Command", marking he'd ended up where he wanted to be. Swiping his wrist band again, the door slid open with a smooth sound, Eil moving up the steps leading into the control room, which was abuzz as uniformed staff members darted around and tapped away on the panels in front of them, a blue glow emanating into the chamber from the windows before it.

"Well ain't this more than a bit busy?" Eil remarked, ignoring the sudden twinge he felt go up his spine, and the central chair of the command room shot around, Eil finding himself faced with a girl appearing to be around his own age of eighteen-years-old, her long off-white hair flared about in a few places, the left part on her head pulled back into a braid, some of the strands framing gold colored eyes, her attire an ensemble different than the uniforms of the staff, more like what Eil would call "a typical western magus" style.

"Coltheart?! Were have you been?" The girl snapped, her tone bearing obvious irritation added by the glare, Eil just sitting on the table like structure in front of the girl.

"Library. Ended up dozing off for a while. I'm guessing I missed something?" Eil said, fiddling with a particular bunch of his hair that stuck up like an antenna for a moment, the girl just huffing, "What? It's not like I did it to spite you Marie. Okay, maybe a bit. Besides it's just orientation, and I've been here for half a year."

"Half a year doesn't exactly excuse that kind of attitude now does it?" A man's voice said, Eil looking over to spot a man standing at the frontal area, the man dressed incredibly old fashioned with long black hair under a top hat, and Eil gave a small shrug.

"I don't see a point in hearing things again and again. Sorry if it doesn't get the point across, Professor Leff." Eil remarked, Leff just humming and turning forward, though Eil could swear he caught a smirk on the man's face as he looked away from him.

"So _that's_ why there was an empty seat during the meeting." The girl, Olga Marie Animusphere, grumbled, her glare boring into Eil's side with all the intent of wanting to burn holes through him. While it was true Eil had been present in Chaldea for quite some time, the two had next to never gotten along. He was standoffish and carefree, she was stiff as a board and more than a bit commanding, matched by her role as the current Director.

Oil and water if ever there was something the staff could call the two young adults, if the somewhat exasperated air that had suddenly overtaken the room could say anything, though a sweeping glare from Marie was enough to get everyone back to their previous tasks with earnest.

"Yeah well too late for that now. Also I thought you'd be down on the floor, but, I guess the great commander's gotta oversee her soldiers eh?" Eil said, stepping down to the lower area and looking out into the space below, his eyes following to the source of the blue glow coming into the room, the structure massive and constructed of multiple rings, and within it a dark orb marked by darker colored constructions of the planet's land masses, "CHALDEAS seems to be going fine despite the dark look… remind me what it is we're making a mess over right now. It's that red light vaguely somewhere in Japan yeah?"

"Honestly…" Marie grumbled, placing a hand over her face, Eil craning his neck to look back at her, "Maybe if, for once, you actually showed up to meetings more than a few rare times you'd be more aware, but, fine. We have the Master teams on standby as we perform our first Rayshift experiment into Singularity F."

"Right right, that thing that popped up in, where, 2004?" Eil remarked, getting a nod, _"And recalling the location… Fuyuki City… that would be during the_ _Grail War wouldn't it? Why would a distortion appear there of all places? Hmm… maybe mom could tell me something more about it."_

"Oh so you _were_ paying attention during the briefing with Team A before this." Marie said, her tone biting while Eil just turned back around as he gave a small huff, "Also, considering your behavior, consider yourself taken off of this mission. Stay."

"Well ain't you in a bad mood. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" Eil muttered, sitting down on the steps as he sighed, putting a hand to his head when that headache came back, _"It's even more intense… feels like I'm in a furnace with how hot I am now… and it's like something is… right under us…"_

"Hey, Coltheart are you alright? You're looking pale…r, and kinda flush. You need to see Dr. Roman?" One of the nearby staff members asked, Eil shaking his head as he lowered his hand.

"I'm fine, just a headache is all." Eil grumbled, waving the staff member down, though he felt a lurching feeling as his vision flashed, his eyes going wide when he saw himself beholden to the room being a flame, and the blue light emanating from CHALDEAS had become a glaring, burning red… but the flash just as quickly returned to normal, Eil lurching a bit as he leaned on the desk, "Maybe I should go see Romani…"

As Eil stood up though, his left hand that was supporting him clenched. The flash he'd seen felt illogical, far too sudden, the human sense of denial telling him to ignore it, that what he'd seen could have just been some kind of stress hallucination… but he knew better. It was like a gut feeling, a warning… the kind of thing he knew to trust.

"I think… I think we need to get out of the control room. Now." Eil muttered, the staff members and Marie looking at him with confusion.

"What are you talking about? The experiment is about to start and you're telling us to leave?" Marie said, and when Eil glanced at her, his vision flashed again into a brief view of a violent explosion coming right from where she sat, Eil lurching a bit again as his vision returned to normal, "You really don't look well, are you _sure_ it's just a headache?"

" _So… this is the kind of thing dad was telling me about."_ Eil thought, standing straight again, "Look I know it sounds weird, but just trust me okay? Something doesn't feel right…"

"Really? After six months of basically avoiding people you're saying we should trust you on some weird feeling of yours?" Marie said, Eil giving a bitter chuckle.

"Yeah, stupid, I know." Eil remarked, standing up straighter as he felt some of the screaming pain ebbing away, "But, seriously, we need to…"

And that was when he felt some kind of ticking in the air, this dark presence suddenly looming in the air like an oppressive cloud, and he glanced back at CHALDEAS, gritting his teeth a bit.

"Man this makes no sense… but I was told to trust this kind crap! We need to go now!" Eil snapped, grabbing Marie by the arm, the girl giving a confused look as he pulled her out of the chair, "Everyone move now!"

Something about the urgency in Eil's words, despite the confusion in the air got the others to react as Eil began pulling Marie back towards the door, everyone rushing to move as he directed, and suddenly a shaking rocked the facility and got everyone to stumble, Marie's eyes wide as she stumbled while Eil kept pulling her back.

"Behind me now!" Eil snapped, the staff diving to the door in a sudden panic as Eil threw Marie behind him, raising his left arm, an image flashing in his mind of a heavy hammer slamming into burning red metal, the image of the sparks following with a glow coming across his left arm as he raised it in front of him while jumping back, _"Scutum!"_

As blue light flared from his hand, five small balls of light flew out from the pulsing glow on his arm, arranging themselves in front of Eil and those behind him as more dove to the door while the lights flashed off, leaving the glow from the energy on Eil's arms and the orbs, lines flashing along the orbs and then bursting out, a barrier flashing outwards and back as a dome, the same split second behind followed by another booming sound and the rocking of the facility, a flash coming from the outer chamber, flames rushing into the command room. Eil grimaced as the force of the explosion was stopped dead by the barrier while some of the staff scrambled out of the door when it opened, the force causing the barrier to crack all over, but it withstood it even as the one casting it let out a pained scream.

"Damn that hurts!" Eil snapped, the glow on his arm pulsing as blood began flowing down his arm, and when the blue glow faded, Marie saw that his sleeve had been downright burnt off and his skin was burnt to a raw red, Eil slumping to the ground as the flames from the decimated control room blazed, "Geez… that… sucks!"

"What the… what's going on?!" Marie shouted, coughing a bit from the smoke, and her eyes turned to CHALDEAS, going wide to see that the sphere had turned a pitch black, visible even among the falling rubble and raging flames, "What… but… why is… why is CHALDEAS turning red?!"

"Well… that gut feeling was right." Eil muttered, wincing as his attempt to use his left arm for support only invited an sharp pulse of pain added with what as already present from the burnt and bleeding limb, "Dammit!"

Eil snapped as he fell a bit, his vision starting to get blurry as he felt exhaustion beginning to weigh on him, sounds becoming dull like the panicked voices around him and the blaring sirens, the dark CHALDEAS in his vision, with just enough sight left to see the dark orb become a burning red as his vision finally went black.

* * *

"WHOA!"

Eil snapping awake and shooting up earned a sharp yelp from somebody next to him, the young man breathing a bit heavily as he looked around, immediately registering the space of the infirmary, wincing when he moved his left arm down, looking down to see that his forearm and hand were wrapped in bandages that were still a bit bloody. And all around him were other people on the beds and whatever else people could be laid on, an air of panic still around the room.

"What, happened?" Eil muttered, putting his right hand to his head.

"Man you get up fast! You almost gave me a heart attack!" A voice said, Eil glancing over to see whoever'd yelled in shock sighing, a man with long, fluffy strawberry-blonde colored hair.

"Romani? Where've you been?" Eil muttered, Romani chuckling.

"Yeah uh, sorry… me and whoever could manage things were busy dragging injured people here. Things are one heck of a mess right now." The man said, Eil looking at his bandaged left arm, "Ah, that. That arm of yours was a mess. Your magic circuits nearly overloaded from backlash and caused blood vessels to burst, not to mention the burning. You should be fine but, well, if I were you I'd avoid using it for a while."

"Yeah well that's what I get for using a bounded field to block an explosion barely twenty feet from us." Eil said, Romani's eyes going wide, "There was an explosion in the control room, and I think somewhere else."

"Yeah, the reactor." Romani said, "Still, how'd you do _that?_ When I saw the control room it was a complete mess! You'd have to cast a pretty strong barrier to block something that strong."

"I've got a few tricks up my sleeve." Eil said, putting a hand to his head, "What's even going on? How many people are even injured, this place is packed."

"Ah, well… about that…" Romani said, standing up, he and Eil looking out across the swathes of people in the infirmary, more of then giving groans or screams of pain as the medical staff and assisting machines scrambled around to try and manage them all, "It's… _bad._ The lower wings near the reactor are heavily damaged and we barely got enough power to keep things running because of it. The control room and CHALDEAS' chamber are just as damaged."

"And the Master Candidates were all set up in that chamber too." Eil remarked, standing up, Romani giving a cautious sound.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Should you really be getting up now Eil? You've been out for a really long time!" Romani said, Eil nodding as he adjusted his jacket.

"I'm fine. I can deal with an injured arm." Eil said, "What about everyone else who was in the control room? Did they make it out? And how's Mar… the Director?"

"Well… surprisingly a good majority of the control room staff is next to perfectly fine." Romani stated, Eil giving a relieved sounding sigh, "A few are missing but… other than that, I guess we have you to thank for getting them out… and as for the Director, well… she's fine, physically anyway, but, maybe you should just see for yourself."

"So she's _not_ okay." Eil said, Romani giving a bit of an awkward chuckle, pointing Eil off to one of the curtained off areas, Eil stepping over and sliding the curtain open, peering in to see that Marie was sitting on the bed, her look being what he could only call shell-shocked.

Eyes wide and wavering to match likely racing, panicked thoughts, the girl's entire body was shuddering as she kept bunching the hem of her dress again and again, Eil wincing when he tried to lean on his left arm out of impulse, switching to his right.

"Marie? You doing alright?"

"Of course I'm not!" Marie snapped, Eil shutting the curtain behind him, Marie putting her heads in her hand, "Why did that happen? Those explosions, the damage… CHALDEAS turning red… what's happening? Why did it happen? What's even going on… Leff… w-where's Leff? He can explain this can't he? He was watching nearby, so maybe he could…"

"Lynor?" Eil asked, tilting his head, "Well, I didn't see him during the commotion… I mean he tends to avoid me anyway but well… Romani, is Lynor around, or is he checking things out?!"

"Uh… well…" Romani poked his head through the curtain, Marie raising a brow as the man showed a tense look, "The thing is, he wasn't among the Command Room staff who got out. Sorry Olga Marie, but I think he's… not around."

"What?! That can't be! He… Leff can't…" Marie murmured, her head slumping, "Romani, what's the situation?"

"That's uh, complicated to explain." Romani said, then his eyes went wide, "Crud! I need to get back to check on them! It's been a while!"

"Check on who?" Eil asked, but Romani already shot out of the room, Eil sighing as he put his uninjured hand over his eyes, then looking at Marie, "Well Director? You gonna go see what he's so antsy about?"

"I just… I don't know anymore." Marie murmured, "Just… do whatever you want."

"Alright then." Eil muttered, stepping out of the curtain, slowly flexing his left hand fingers, grumbling at the dull throbbing that came up his arm, sighing and shifting his jacket to make a makeshift cradle for his injured arm, heading out of the room, glancing around to see more staff members moving about the halls, weaving his way through those moving about until he got back to the entrance of the command room, the door sliding open with an easy press, and Eil found that the state of the room was, for lack of better words, like a bomb went off.

Considering it was quite literal he had to mentally kick himself for comparing the obvious.

The glass barrier between the command room and the lower area containing CHALDEAS was entirely blown out, the room was almost oddly undamaged besides the scorched look of everything around it, Eil spotting Romani at the active terminal in the central chair, the man tapping away at it. Though what grabbed Eil's attention more was the red glow coming through the blown out windows. CHALDEAS was burning red, and strewn about among the yet to be cleared rubble were dozens of pillar like structures, and with the flames finally gone, a very cold feeling was hanging about the air, and not just because of the staff grimly working furiously at the various systems in the room.

"So, I really did see that then." Eil muttered, Romani looking to him with a small edge of surprise, "Any idea what it means for CHALDEAS to be red like this? I know that when it's black it means you can't observe the future… so what the bloody hell does _this_ mean? And what about the Masters?"

"Eil I understand the need for questions, but I don't have time to explain, sorry." Romani said, then tilting his head, "Well, okay I can at least explain that we've put the Masters still in their coffins into cryo-stasis since a lot of them are in critical condition."

"Isn't doing that without consent illegal?" Eil asked, then mulling on it for a moment, "Well, actually, I don't think it matters does it? Anyway, why the urgency? Is someone actually in the singularity right now or what?"

"Uh, yes, actually… it's complicated." Romani said, Eil moving over to the terminal, "Now come on… the connection was on and off but it was working… what's going on in there?"

"Mind me asking _who_ is in there if all the Masters are on ice?" Eil said, Romani stopping for a moment.

"Well, not _all of them_ as it stands." Romani said, Eil raising a brow, Romani then chuckling, "Ah ha! It's back on, alright! What's their status, I didn't go away for that long…"

"Uh… sitrep _please?!"_ Eil snapped, shoving his way near Romani as the screen crackled, eventually projecting into a full view on the screen, Eil registering the area as the depts of a cavern, and his eyes went wide as he looked at it, "What the… that's the Greater Grail's cavern isn't it?! I mean I know the Singularity is in Fuyuki but…"

"Wait, how did you know that's what the place is?" Romani asked, a dull sound coming from Eil's throat.

"It's… complicated." Eil said, focusing more on the image as Romani focused it in, beginning to register the figures of people amid the chaos in the cave from the flares of fire and blasts of dark power while something else was stopping the dark blasts, "Come on can't we see more? Can you at least tell me what's going on?"

"Ah, right, okay, well, see, after getting into the cavern the Master and Servant we got in there, along with a Caster Class Servant who joined them earlier on, ran into a blackened Saber, King Arthur." Romani said, Eil raising a brow, "It was chaotic so I rushed back to see what was up in the infirmary but…"

"Yeah maybe you should've stayed here. Man there's so much stuff flying all over the place I can't see a thing!" Eil grumbled, he and Romani flinching when the series of blasts instead changed into a focused one, it stopping dead on what Eil could tell was as shield held by one of the fighters, but the distance of their viewing and the darkness of the cave made it hard to see, even as he squinted, "Wait… is that one _running_ towards that clash?!"

"Huh?! What?! What is she thinking?!" Romani yelped, Eil watching closely as a glow started to form from the shield as the Master got behind it with the Servant holding it, Eil leaning in close and starting to zoom the image in himself as a magic circle formed in front of the shield that began pushing the blast back as a phantasmal wall formed, going from blocking the dark blast to directing it right back it's user, Eil and Romani staring at the screen in silent shock as a stillness came about the cavern, "Did… did they do it?"

"I think so… wait, no, Saber's still standing!" Eil said, the dust clearing to show the dark figure was still alive, but hunched over in clear pain, but the phantasmal wall began to fade, Romani yelping.

"Ahh! That's not good!" Romani yelped, Eil's eyes going wide as a dark aura began surrounding Saber again, their sword being raised high in preparation for another blast, but, his eyes caught another shape shoot past, a blue haired man shooting in front of the fading barrier, his staff coming down and causing flames to burst out beneath Saber.

"A Noble Phantasm… who is it then?" Eil remarked, the young man giving a hum while Romani's eyes went wide as a giant made of wicker rose from the flames with Saber on it's head, the dark Servant's attempt at attacking only got the Servant grabbed and thrown into the giant's chest, Romani reeling back, even if it was only a video feed, as the giant fell onto the flames, the blaze turning into a torrent of fire that shot upwards and blocked out anything else they could see in the video for a few moments, a quiet coming to both the room and the cavern, (at least Eil guessed it did) "Okay… NOW I think they did it."

A heavy sigh of relief passed through the room, a few people collapsing and Romani leaning back heavily in his chair.

"Thank goodness! NOW I can contact them!" Romani said, pressing a switch, a ringing sounding for a moment before the crackle of the line picking up sounded, Eil checking the feed to see the only ones who remained standing where the shield user and the Master girl, and a ways off from them, some kind of golden glow, "Well done you two! I'm pretty surprised we managed to get visuals on this end!"

"One hell of a hustle we gotta say. You two had this entire room sitting here with baited breath." Eil said, looking to the call line on the side to check the name of the connected device, "Ritsuka Fujimaru… Candidate 48… so that's who made it through huh? Well, congrats to you then."

" _Huh? Romani who's speaking right now?"_ A girl's voice answered, Romani managing to make the visuals focus as the line crackled a bit more, eventually a proper image appearing on a holographic panel, revealing the faces of a red headed, amber eyed girl and another girl in some kind of armor holding a shield with light violet (or pink) hair and darker eyes, Eil recognizing the latter, both girls going wide eyed as Eil leaned into frame of the communications.

"Eil Coltheart at your Service. And nice to see you're still kickin' Mash." Eil said, looking at the panel, "Guess with that sorted out the interference that was messing with this is gone huh?"

"Yeah, so we have a proper view. Geez that cave is huge though." Romani said, "Ritsuka, Mash, is there anything else or are we totally safe?"

" _Yes sir, so far there's nothing."_ The violet haired girl, Mash Kyrielight, said, _"Master and I are fine, but things still seem stable in this Singularity."_

" _Hey, Mash I said just to call me Ritsuka!"_ The red headed girl said, Eil giving a small snicker, _"Master is too formal! Either way, Mash is right, nothing over here… the cave is dark and damp, and that ominous pillar thing is still here but that doesn't matter, right?"_

"It's just the Greater Grail. The problem was the disturbance. I think it has to do with that crystal over there." Eil pointed out, but everyone stopped when they heard slow clapping, and at that same moment, the door into the room opened, Marie entering and bearing a confused look as she approached the central station.

"Anyone else got a bad feeling?" Eil said, the feed following Mash and Ritsuka as they turned around to the dark light emanating from above them.

" _My, I never thought you both would get this far."_ A man's voice said, Marie's eyes going wide as she heard it, _"This is an unforeseen element in the project that goes beyond what my tolerance allows."_

"Professor Leff?!" Eil gasped, promptly getting shoved out of the way by Marie, who looked downright ecstatic to see the man on the feed, "AGH!"

"Leff! Leff you're okay!" Marie said.

" _Hmm? Ah, it seems you're still alive too Marie."_ Leff said, Eil peering back in from the other side, a suspicious look on his face.

"Of course! I thought I was going to go crazy because of what's been going on, but with you still here, we'll find a way out of this, right?" Marie said, Eil glancing to her then back to the feed.

" _Of course."_ Leff answered, but his tone had become markedly cold. " _"I'm just so furious with all these unexpected events. Romani, I told you to come to the control room right away… and you, Coltheart and Olga… I planted that bomb right beneath your feet. I can't believe you're still alive… but, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised when a Zvezda is involved."_

" _He knows?!"_ Eil's thoughts ground to a halt from shock, Marie's eyes going wide at what was being said.

" _I honestly believed you'd be just as susceptible, but maybe I should've known better with a child of those heretics being around… always so troublesome, those godforsaken stargazers who call themselves mages. Always putting their noses into business they have no reason to bother with."_ Leff said, Eil's uninjured hand bunching up into a fist, eyes turning to him in mixes of confusion, surprise, or shock, though Marie seemed the most shaken up by the sheer malice in Leff's voice. _"And poor Marie… you see your CHALDEAS before you, yet you don't seem to comprehend what it's state really means, do you?"_

"What? N-No, that's just a virtual image, right? It hasn't happened yet, what we're seeing is just a possible future isn't it?" Marie said, many looking back to CHALDEAS and it's red glow.

" _Oh believe me, it is very much the truth!"_ Leff stated, _"This is the result of your family's lunacy, scion of the Animusphere family!"_

" _What are you even on about you crazy bastard!"_ Ritsuka shouted, and as she threw a fist up, though Mash quickly rushed in front of her Master, _"Mash?"_

" _As expected of the Demi-Servant."_ Leff scoffed, _"You could tell I was a fundamentally different creature could you? Hmm… you know, I wonder… Zvezda boy, tell me, was your seeming sick spell also_ _because of you being able to sense my true nature? Your family always was more than a bit strange, not that even something like that would amount to anything… and you, the 48_ _th_ _potential Master. I turned a blind eye to you because you held no promise. Why do humans always want to avoid the course of fate that is chosen for them?"_

"I personally don't believe in fate… I think our destiny is something we shape ourselves. And besides, humans are kind of stubborn like that." Eil remarked, Leff looking to him in particular now, "We kind of have a thing against being told what we can and can't do, especially when it comes to our own lives!"

" _I don't really have a good idea of what's going on but… who likes thinking their entire life has been planned out huh? What'd be the point of that?"_ Ritsuka said.

" _A flawed couple of thoughts if ever there was any."_ Leff scoffed, then taking a stance, _"I will introduce myself once more. I am Leff Lynor Flauros. I am in charge of 2017, tasked to dispose of your human race. You heard that properly, right Dr. Roman?"_

"Professor Leff…" Roman murmured, Marie shaking her head.

"What are you talking about? Flauros? Dispose of humanity? Leff what are you talking about?" Marie snapped, and she flinched when Leff's cold gaze was turned to her.

" _It is just as I said. My task is to dispose of humanity… but, I will give one final piece of advice to my previously fellow student."_ Leff stated, _"The future has not disappeared: It has been incinerated! Chaldea is likely being protected by the magnetic field of CHALDEAS. But I'm sure the outside is meeting the same fate as Fuyuki."_

"So… the reason we aren't able to make contact with the outside isn't because communications are down, but because there's no one outside to receive them." Romani observed, Eil's eyes going wide while Marie stumbled back.

"What? Incinerated? How? The mission was to investigate and prevent the change we saw… how did…. When did this happen? There's no way the outside could just be gone!" Marie said, Leff laughing.

" _Unfortunately for your incompetent mind, you have no choice but to believe me!"_ Leff said, Marie flinching as if she'd just been struck, _"You will not perish from becoming an evolutionary dead end, nor will you not be destroyed after engaging in war with other races. Rather, from your meaningless, your own incompetence, and because you have lost the favor of our King! You will burn away like useless waste paper, leaving behind no traces!"_

"What… no… what's… why? Leff…" Marie murmured, her stumble back being followed by a gasp coming form the girl, Eil shooting over and catching Marie as she fell, the girl unconscious as she went limp.

"Marie? Hey, come on!" Eil snapped.

" _Whoawhoawhoa! Why is the ground shaking?!"_ Ritsuka yelped, Romani shooting up a bit in his chair as the feed showed the cavern started to break and collapse.

" _So, this Singularity has reached it's limit has it?"_ Leff murmured, _"That accursed Saber caused me unnecessary trouble, trying to maintain this time period even while being awarded the Holy Grail."_

"Wait… Saber kept the Singularity going?" Eil murmured, setting Marie against one of the consoles, "Someone get her to the infirmary, her room… ah, dammit I don't care!"

"Y-Yes!" A few of the staff said, picking up the unconscious Marie and leaving the room, Eil turning back to the feed.

"Leff… no, let's call you Flauros, what the hell are you own about? What's with this whole incineration plot?!" Eil snapped, slamming his hands down on the console, Romani yelping as the boy shoved his face in front of the feed.

" _Hehehe, like you need to know brat!"_ Leff mocked, Eil growling, _"Well then, farewell, Mash, Romani, Zvezda, and the 48_ _th_ _potential!"_

"Flauros!" Eil shouted, but the man vanished in a blink of light, "Dammit… Mash, Fujimaru, are you two alright in there?"

" _We're fine but, the cave is… no, the space was already unstable!"_ Mash said, using her shield to protect her and Ritsuka from the falling rocks, the red haired girl retreating further under the shield when a peek out nearly got one to fall on her head.

" _Dr. Roman get us out of here! This entire house is coming down around us!"_ Ritsuka shouted, Romani already getting to work on the keyboard.

"Already on it! But, sorry, that place might collapse around you first! Anyway, it can still be salvaged if…" Romani gasped when the feed was suddenly cut, slamming his hand on the console, "Dammit!"

"Does that matter? If you can still pull them back then do it? They're all we got left right?" Eil said, Romani nodding.

"Yes, well, I mean there's you but… agh whatever let's hope this works!" Romani shouted, slamming his finger down onto the panel, and following a sudden spark, a blinding flash of light filled the room from the area below, Eil's attempt to look allowing him to register two forming figures before the flash ended, a dead silence coming over everyone and everything, "It… It worked right? Somebody go see if they're back!"

"I'll head down!" Eil said, dashing over to the lower end and clambering over the furthest station, Romani yelping as the young man launched off the terminal with a burst of light coming from his legs, a few more pulses coming from his feet as Eil stepped down the distance below and to the floor, moving into the rubble sticking about over the area, looking through, "Mash! Fujimaru! You awake in there?!"

"Fou!"

"Eh?!"

Eil yelped when something came barreling at him and struck him in the face, something clambering over his head before coming to rest on his right shoulder, the young man looking over to see some kind of small squirrel or maybe cat like creature with fluffy white fur had perched itself on him.

"Fou? You were with them?" Eil asked.

"Fou, fou!" The small creature directed Eil's eye one way with a move of it's head, jumping from it's perch and to the ground, "Fou!"

"Follow you? Right!" Eil said, following Fou through the bits of rubble a short ways, eventually coming across the collapsed forms of Ritsuka and Mash on the ground, the young man giving a sigh, climbing up the rubble he was leaning on, waving his arm, "Heyyy! They made it through! They're unconscious over here!"

"Really?! That's great!" Romani shouted, looking across the staff, "Alright, get some people down here to see how they are stat! We've got a lot of work to do from here on!"

"Well he's got that right." Eil remarked, sliding down the bit of rubble and sitting on another piece, looking to the two unconscious girls on the floor as Fou poked one of his paws on Ritsuka's face, "So these two managed to resolve a Singularity on their own huh? Heh… well if it's like that from the start we may actually have a bloody chance at all this!"

Eil chuckled to himself as he flopped back, wincing as his left arm got a jolt that sent a flash of pain through it, his eyes then turning to the burning red CHALDEAS, his eyes widening a bit as it's rotation revealed glowing marks at various points, seven in total.

"Seven huh? Hahahahaha… if that just isn't ironic to how Grail Wars function huh?" Eil murmured, sitting up a bit, "Seven Singularities, just like how there's seven main classes… things really have just started for us, have they? Also… guess I can finally stop making myself stay awake…"

A chuckle came from Eil's mouth as his body lurched a bit, flopping back again as he started feeling a weight on him, his closing eyes stuck on the burning image of CHALDEAS and it's seven lights before he slipped off into unconsciousness again, one final thought coming to mind for him.

" _Just you wait Flauros, whoever the hell is doing this… humanity isn't done yet, count on it."_

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Well this is another thing that's been sitting on the burner for a good while now. If some of this hasn't been a clue then things ain't gonna quite be the same... then again I think a lot of GO fics tend to be like that, sorta. Yay for being free from game-play narrative restrictions! Now I already got an idea or two for Eil's first summon... but let's see what ya'll can throw out eh? If you've got questions, feel free to PM me. I'll try to be spoiler free about it. See ya next time, please review if ya' will!**


	2. Chapter 1

Fate/Grand Order Alternative

 **Chapter 1: Those That Remain**

"Ow! Could you be careful?!"

"Sorry. But your skin is still raw from the burns."

Eil clicked his tongue as he shut down the impulse to reel his arm back as Romani finished removing the wrappings on it, discarding the bloody wrappings into a nearby waste bin, gently grabbing the injured limb and looking it over.

"But, all things considered, the burst veins healed remarkably fast. It's barely even been a day." Romani observed, noting how the only marks left on it being the already healing burns, leaving only raw skin in it's place, "Did you use healing magic?"

"Ehhh… a bit." Eil said, flexing his fingers, "I'm not that good at it, so I could only close where I was bleeding and not much else."

"Well that explains the closing, but not the… eh, whatever. The sooner we have you back in action, the better."

Eil chuckled a bit as Romani started putting new wraps on the arm. The doctor found it a bit surprising when he looked up and saw the young man with a casual smile on his face as he leaned on a hand. He typically saw Eil skulking around with a neutral scowl on his face. But, it was a pleasant difference as far as the doctor was concerned.

"Well, I think an injured arm is a decent trade off for saving lives. I'll heal, but you can't just go and resurrect people." Eil said, following Romani's eyes when the doctor yelped. Marie was standing at the entrance of the infirmary, and the best thing to describe her current expression would probably be a more subtle kind of shock, "Well, morning. How are you doing?"

"F-Fine…" Marie murmured, though her tone of voice said things to the contrary. But, considering the heavy shock of the previous day, it was a wonder she was actually up and about, "Dr. Roman, what's the situation after… yesterday."

"Ah… well, that's…" Romani stumbled a bit in his words, then sighing as he promptly finished the wrappings on Eil's arm, standing up. "If you could follow me, I'll give you a more detailed explanation."

"I wanna hear this too." Eil said, Romani nodding as the young man stepped off the chair. The trio headed into the corridors, now much more silent than the buzz of activity from the other day.

"So, how much manpower do we have left?" Marie asked, folding her arms under her chest.

"About… 50% of what we had before." Romani said, the statement alone like a blow to the head, "Thanks to Eil though, most of the command staff is still alive to keep that running. We lost a good deal of our maintenance and security staff from the lower areas because of a second bomb. And then the Master Candidates… all 46 of them we had deployed are on ice right now, and in critical condition. Ritsuka is still asleep I think… then we have Eil. So in terms of numbers though, including us, around 100 active people remain in Chaldea."

"We're gonna need a way to make up for that lost man power." Eil murmured, Marie having gone totally silent. "So, what about repairs?"

"Well, we have backup supplies, so we should be able to make necessary repairs… but after that we'll be almost out… and due to the situation, it's not like we can contact the outside world to request more supplies than what we already have stocked up."

"Yeah but don't we have enough food supplies and other things to last a few years?" Eil asked, then putting a hand on his chin, "Yeah just ignore that question… we're up shit creek without a paddle, and we're in the messy rapids."

"At the least, we still have plenty of staff." Marie murmured, "So as for Fujimaru… who's her Servant?"

"Ah, well, that's… an interesting thing, actually." Romani stated, "Her Servant is, believe it or not, Kyrielight."

"What?! So… that means the demi-Servant project succeeded… but why now? All the other attempts before it failed." Marie murmured, Eil giving her a look, "Nothing… so, what Servant bonded with her then?"

"Well… we don't actually _know."_ Romani stated, the group coming to a halt as Marie stopped dead, "Not even Mash herself knows the identity of the Servant. All we know is that she wields a shield, and it can create a barrier capable of blocking, and reflecting, Excalibur."

"Well now I _really_ wanna know who it is." Eil remarked, pocketing his hands, the air quiet for a bit until they reached the door to the command center.

"Hold it." Marie spoke up, Eil and Romani stopping, "Before we go further, Coltheart… or, rather, Zvezda… what's the deal with you? Why would someone from a clan of heretics come here… or much less, be a student at the Clocktower?"

"That is… very complicated. And besides… I'd rather explain it when everyone who needs to hear it is in the same room." Eil said, sighing when Marie gave him a glare, "Hey if you're being moody cause of what happened the other day, save it. There's other things we need to worry about."

"We have other things to manage, so let's get to that." Romani said, opening the door to the CHALDEAS chamber, still strewn with rubble, but now clear of the Coffins and lacking the cold feeling that it had before. Standing a short ways down the central walkway as the girl Eil recognized from the feed earlier, now in a more standard set of clothing… though they did know each other to a degree. Mash Kyrielight, who _had_ been one of the other Master candidates, but recent scenarios had obviously changed that status. "Good morning, Mash."

"Oh, doctor, good morning." Mash said, her eyes shifting behind her glasses as she registered Eil and Marie being present as well, "Ah, Director, Coltheart, good morning too you two as well."

"Hey Kyrielight. Holding up alright?" Eil asked, Mash nodding, _"Why is a girl named Mash anyway?"_

"Yes, very well. Considering what happened, I'm in pretty good shape…. What about you? I heard your arm was injured." The girl pointed out Eil's bandaged arm, and he just shrugged as he put his arms behind his head, even if he did wince a bit from doing so.

"Don't worry about it, I'll be fine in a day or two. Besides, an injured arm is worth it for saving lives. Could be worse, right?" Eil's response came with a casual smile being on his face, which then caused a silence to fall on the room, "What?"

"It's just… sorry to sound rude, but I've never seen you smile like that." Mash said, Eil's expression going to a flat one.

"Yeah admittedly I find it kind of off. Pleasent, but off. You're pretty standoffish most of the time." Romani added, Eil then glaring at him, "See! It's looks like that which keep people away from you!"

"Can we not start this right now… Marie you're being pretty quiet." Eil remarked, Marie shaking her head, seemingly gathering her composure again.

"It's nothing. It's just Fujimaru now right? Where is she?" Marie stated, and on cue to it, the door flew open, Ritsuka rushing in, the red haired girl waving an arm.

"Mash!" Ritsuka dashed over, skidding to a stop with a visible cloud of dust behind her.

"Good morning, Senpai!" Mash's air quickly changed to a more cheerful one, Eil gaining a smirk at the immediate change, though mostly because Ritsuka gained a pouty look at being referred to as "Senpai" again, "I'm glad to see that you're okay."

"Good morning Mash. I'm fine, thanks to you." A polite reply either way, though Ritsuka quickly went back to the pout, "And don't call me senpai, it's just Ritsuka! We're friends, no need to be so formal."

"Sorry, it just came out again." Mash said, Ritsuka just sighing, "But I should be the one thanking you. I was able to stay conscious, thanks to you."

"Ahem. I'm all for your reunion, but could you bring your attention here please?" Romani spoke up, the two girls turning to face the other three in the room, "First of all, congratulations on surviving and completing your mission Ritsuka, well done. While the situation was forced on you gradually, you bravely faced the challenges and overcame it. That earned my respect and appreciation. Thanks to you, Mash and Chaldea were saved."

"Thank you kindly!" Ritsuka declared, and then Marie cleared her throat.

"Dr. Roman, let me remind you who the director is." The white haired girl said, Romani chuckling nervously, Marie simply sighing, "But he's right. Even for someone so… _normal,_ you did well resolving that singularity when the rest of us couldn't do anyting. There… is a chance my initial judgement about you was incorrect. Good job Fujimaru."

"Oh hey, the Director can actually hand out compliments, look at that." Eil's tone was a teasing one, Marie giving him a glare, but there was a tinge of red on her face, and then they turned when Ritsuka made a noise.

"Wait! You're the guy from yesterday! The pretty boy!" Ritsuka shouted, Eil pointing to himself, "Yeah! What was your name again… Eil Colt-something…"

"Coltheart. Though as recent revelations have put out it's not actually my name." Eil responded, "But that's for later… what about things outside? Was Leff right?"

"Yeah. I got the report about the crystal from Mash, and what Leff said." Romani responded, and Marie's look became downright depressed, "From Chaldea's state, what Leff said was true. We can't contact the outside world at all. And the staff who left Chaldea haven't returned.. I fear humanity has already been destroyed."

"Well considering the state of _that."_ Eil remarked, drawing attention to CHALDEAS, still burning as red as a flame, making a stark contract to the overall blue glow of the rest of the room, "So if I had to guess, it's likely Chaldea and a bit of the surrounding area was displaced. Leff mentioned something about CHALDEAS' magnetic field saving us. You think we got put onto a timeline just before things went up in flame?"

"That's very likely the case." Romani stated, "Think of it like a colony floating in space. The outside world is dead until we do something about the situation."

"So… it really is all gone… he was right." Marie bit one of her thumbnails as she let out a breath, and it was easy to see that her entire body had gone tense.

"So… there's something we can do about that, right?" Ritsuka asked, "I mean, Mash and I were able to get through that singularity, so there has to be a way to fix all of this, isn't there?"

"Of course there is." Romani answered, pointing at CHALDEAS again, "First, you should see this. You too Eil, since you're the only other Master we have. We tried scanning Earth with the repaired Sheba, but we got Earth in the past, not the future. Ritsuka, Mash, the Fuyuki Singularity was destroyed thanks to you, but, we hypothesize the future was unchanged for another reason."

"More Singularities at different points in history, right?" Eil asked, Romani nodding, and with the press of a button, CHALDEAS' state changed. From a burning red to a nearly dark blue, and across the copied glow were seven points of light displaced in different areas, "Holy shit…"

"This distorted world map is what we got. We found new disturbances that make Fuyuki's pale in comparison. While they say that the past changes the future, you can't overthrow the future with only slight changes. All it does is create a new branch of time." Romani explained, "History can heal itself too boot. While you may save one or two people, the way that era ends will still find a way to reach it's definite result."

"Huh?" Ritsuka tilted her head at the explanation. Eil hummed for a moment, then snapped his fingers.

"Okay, so, say someone went back to before Hitler came into power." Eil stated, Ritsuka turning to him and nodding, "While you _could_ kill Hitler, because of the prominence of World War II as an event in human history, the World would simply change events so that someone else would carry out what Hitler did. You'd change a small part of history, but the final result would remain the same, even if a few names change around to fit it."

"Ohhhhh. I get it. But then, what about these ones here?" Ritsuka pointed to the seven dots of light, and Marie looked to them as well, "There's one in France, Italy, England, out there in the Ocean, America… why those places? If Fuyuki was inconsequential, then why these places?"

"These Singularities are different." Romani said, eyes back on him, "They're humanities turning points. 'What if this war didn't end?', 'What if this naval voyage wasn't successful?', 'What if this discovery was wrong?', 'What if this nation couldn't become independent?' The ultimate decision point to determine the current state of humanity."

"So… the reason why things are the way they ended up, is because these other singularities are founded on core parts of human history?" Marie asked, Eil giving a hum, a hand on his chin.

"And going by that… if I had to guess, these singularities would be placed in times like the 100-Years War, the Roman Empire, the Industrial Revolution, maybe the Revolutionary war, so on and so forth." Eil stated, lowering his arms, "All points in history that were pivotal in deciding the path humanity would take. And destroying those would be like tearing down the foundation of a tower. The entire thing would come falling down in suit."

"Exactly." Romani said, turning his eyes to CHALDEAS and folding his arms, "The future was already decided at these seven singularities when they were formed. As Leff said, humanity doesn't make it to 2019. But, we're different. Chaldea has yet to reach the future. Which means we're the only ones who can fix this. We have a chance to return the singularities, and the points they represent, to normal."

"The only ones?" Marie muttered, biting her thumb again, "Can we even manage this? Saving humanity, with so few people behind the wheel?"

"Well, in short terms, we just go into the Singularities, bust some heads, and get history back on track, right?" Eil said, Marie shaking her head.

"Again, how?! All of our other Master candidates are frozen, and we only have one Servant!" Marie gestured to Mash. The air became silent as it became clear the girl was more venting personal stresses, "We're basically powerless!"

"Yeah, but we've got me here as a second Master." Eil stated, showing his Command Spells to make the point, "And we can always summon more Servants as we need to. FATE works differently than some systems, right? Mash, you don't get your mana from Ritsuka, do you?"

"Uh… no, actually I don't." Mash stated, putting her hand on her chin, "I think I get my mana supply as a Servant from CHALDEAS itself."

"Hmm, yeah. I didn't notice some kind of drain until Caster contracted with me." Ritsuka stated, "He said it was because I'm not used to using my magic circuits… though I still don't really know what those are but… I kinda got it. It was like using up stamina in a gacha game!"

"Huhhh… so that would mean that on the theoretical, and likely very possible side, we could have one Master summon multiple Servants, potentially incredibly powerful ones, and since CHALDEAS would handle the mana supply, they could go all out with no worries of draining the Master too much. Interesting." Eil hummed after giving the point, looking over to Marie, "So, see the point."

"It still hardly helps." Marie muttered. Then Romani cleared his throat again.

"Okay, I know this is crazy, and you two are being forced into this but, I'll say it anyway." Romani looked between Eil and Ritsuka for a moment, giving a breath, "Master Candidate #48, and Master Candidate #8, Eil Coltheart. If you wish to save humanity… if you wish to have a future beyond 2018. Then you two alone will have to go and face those seven singularities in human history. Are you prepared to do this? Can you shoulder the burden of Chaldea and humanity's future?"

"If it's something I can do. Then of course!" Ritsuka answered, Eil chuckling as he put his arm behind his head.

"I'm on board no matter what. Count my sorry ass in on this mess." Eil said, then a smirk came around, "Also, Romani, speeches aren't really your thing.."

"Ech?! Come on Eil, I try…" Romani sighed, Eil chuckling again, then eyes turned to Marie, "Director Marie? Do you want to say anything about this?"

"I still have no idea what to even think, but…" Marie sucked in a breath. Eil could tell she was back in "Director Mode" now as well, "With the current situation, the Preservation of the Human Order has to continue. With that, this mission will change as well. No longer will this be called the First Order. This mission will be the Grand Order! The highest calling a magus can seek. Our enemy will be history itself, and many heroes of the past will surely appear to confront the two of you, my sole remaining Masters. Stand tall and fight, so that Chaldea may reclaim the future that was taken from us."

"Alright!" Ritsuka cheered, then grabbing one of Mash's arms and pulling it up, to the surprise of the bespectacled girl, "Come on Mash, cheer with me! We're gonna save history!"

"U-Uh… w-we're going to… save history…"

"Louder!"

"W-We're going to save history!"

"Yeah!"

"Ahahahaha! Calm down a bit Ritsuka, you're gonna make the poor girl explode." Eil put his arms behind his head as the amused laugh came from him, Ritsuka looking at Mashu to see that the pale haired girl was blushing the same shade as Ritsuka's hair.

"Ahem." Marie then cleared her throat, her sharp gaze looking at Eil, "There's something else we need to address. _You._ Leff… Flauros, called you Zvezda. That's the name of a clan of heretics to the Clocktower. If what he said really is true, then why would those who abandoned the Clocktower arrive here? No, more than that… what _reason_ would a Zvezda have to come to a place such as Chaldea."

"Huh? What's a Zvezda?" Ritsuka asked, Mash also tilting her head.

"I'm unfamiliar with that name as well." Mash stated.

Eil however, sighed and pocketed his hands. He didn't seem to be about to deny what was said, and rather… he seemed miffed this was something he would have to be saying anything at all.

"I was hoping to try and keep on the down low about this but… fine. With the way things are, I don't really see a reason for me to keep any more secrets from anybody." Eil glanced up at the command room above, where some of the staff members could be seen watching from their stations, "To start, my full, and real, name is Eilwyn Zima la Zvezda. And to clue you in Marie… I'm here because your father asked if one of us could be here in Chaldea."

"What?! Father did? But why would he… but the Zevzdas are heretics! Why would he have asked for them to come to Chaldea?!" Marie snapped, Eil sighing heavily, the two then looking over when Ritsuka when she made a noise.

"Uh… I'm still pretty confused about all this." Ritsuka stated, Mash lifting one hand slowly.

"Same with me. What do you two even mean?" Mash asked, Marie huffing."

"The Zvezda clan, ages ago, were cast out of the Association and declared heretics. The full details were never founded on, but, their research was enough to get a Sealing Designation, a mark of a magus who's achieved something that can't be replicated through study alone that isn't True Magic, marked onto them." Marie explained, though the initiated two looked horribly lost. Romani had about accepted he didn't really have much of a part in this conversation and had gone to tapping away on his tablet.

"Marie, you're going to confuse them if you keep throwing around terms they don't know." Eil stated, his arms behind his head now, "And I'll explain the actual details to why my family was declared heretical. In short, it's our Sorcery Trait." He also registered this was a term Ritsuka just looked confused at, though Mash seemed a bit more aware about this idea, "In short, my bloodline's special trait as magi. Our Trait is what allowed us to even develop the magecraft that got us branded as heretics in the first place. The Association just couldn't throw people at the current heir to spread the trait out more, so they decided to stick a Sealing Designation and try ti reign us in. Obviously this didn't fly too well. So, my ancestor at the time shipped off back to our estate in Russia and cut off all ties with the Association."

"Oh so it's kinda like in a video game where the protagonist's family does some awesome thing that ticks off the higher ups, so they get kicked out, leave, and then by the time the protagonist comes around, _suddenly_ they need their help with their special skills!" Ritsuka said, all eyes on her, "What? It's the best comparison that came to mind."

"Well it's not an incorrect one." Eil remarked.

"That doesn't explain why my father would ask one of you to come here to Chaldea! As far as I know, he never associated with your family!" Marie said, Eil chuckling, "What? How is that funny?"

"See, there's a couple things about the Zvezdas people _don't_ know." Eil said, "And one of them, is they we worked as overseers during Holy Grail Wars. It so happened that during the one your father participated in, was one where my mother was overseeing things. With goals in mind due to that, the story goes he asked if she'd send someone here to Chaldea once it got up and running. I think protecting the Human Order makes things like whether or not it's a clan of heretics you're working with. Same situation applies here. I'm the only other Master in the room Marie. The fact I'm a Zvezda doesn't matter."

"Ngh… it still doesn't sit well with me… I can't believe I was saved by one of them, of all things." Marie grumbled and folded her arms, a heavy sigh leaving her throat, "But you're correct… I don't have a choice but to rely on your help. But how do I know you won't try something?"

"I saved your life along with a bunch of other's didn't I? I think that's proof enough I'm here to help." Eil stated, and one could feel the tension in the air between the two.

"I feel like this is the kind of thing that eventually winds up going into a completely different direction given enough time." Ritsuka whispered into Mash's ear, the bespectacled girl raising a brow.

"So… if we're done with that topic… should we go and have Eil get to summoning his Servant about now?" Romani said, clearing his throat to the get the attention of the teens, "We can't immediately dive into the next Singularity for now, but it would be best if we at least got that taken care of as soon as possible, right?"

"Good point." Marie said, turning to Eil, "As Director, I'll authorize this action… though, how will we take care of that? The FATE system has been rather unstable, we've only had three successful summons."

"Well, we were actually able to fix that." Romani said, moving to guide everyone out of the chamber, "See, Mash's Noble Phantasm is actually perfect for setting up a summoning circle. It was how we got whatever supplies we could to her and Ritsuka when they were in Fuyuki."

"A shield that can act as a summoning catalyst?" Eil said, Romani nodding, causing the boy to give a hum. "Now that _really_ makes me question how the Spirit she's bound to is. You really don't know Mash?"

"Sadly, not at all." Mash stated, shaking her head, "I don't know their true name, and I don't even have a proper name for my Noble Phantasm, so I can't use it's full power even when I channel it. I also can't access all of their skills either."

"Hmmm…" Eil hummed again as he took a moment to focus particular on Mash. One could notice there was a gleam to his eyes as he did. Eil himself started to get an image, but, then it became like static. Not a shred of information came to him, only one word. "… Class: Shielder…"

"Huh?" Ritsuka suddenly stopping as Eil did made the group of five halt, Eil putting a hand over an eye as the glow in them dimmed.

"Yeah. The Class of the Servant that Mash is bound to. It's one outside of the primary seven Classes. Shielder… well, certainly fits with the weapon then." Eil stated, Mash then giving a hum of her own.

"Yes, that's the name of their Class. I found it odd, but, I'll work with what I can for now." Mash said. Eil found the determination in the seemingly meek girl's voice interesting. Sure he'd been standoffish since he arrived in Chaldea, but Mash just seemed like the kind of person who naturally chose NOT to approach others. Seeing her show some confidence was a neat thing to see for him.

"Ah, right, I just remembered something!" Ritsuka suddenly yelped, then fiddling around in the pocket's in her skirt. Eil just wondered how the skirt actually _had_ pockets anyway. Ritsuak then gave an "aha" when she found whatever she was looking for, "This!"

"Eh?" Eil raised a brow as the girl flourished the item a bit. It was some kind of silver earring, a couple inches long at best, with an almost spear like shape to it, "An earring?"

"Yeup. Caster threw it to me before he faded away. He did it while mentioning summoning him as a Lancer… don't know why he'd give me this though. In fact, I'm surprised it made it back with me." Ritsuka said, letting Eil look at the earring in a closer view.

"An earring given to you by a Servant huh? That would actually serve as a good catalyst I bet." Eil said, Ritsuka tilting her head. "Okay, in short, while you can just leave it to chance when summoning a Servant, items related to a certain Servant can be used to summon them. In this case, this earring. Since it was one of Caster's personal belongings, and then he handed it to you, that means if you have it in hand when performing the summoning ritual, you'll get him. Make sense?"

"So… it's like performing random crafting in a game, but knowing what specific item nets you the result you want." Ritsuka said, Eil nodding, "Got it!"

"I do not understand her comparisons at all…" Marie muttered, shaking her head, "But, the thing is, during a normal Holy Grail War, even having just one Servant would be a monumental task to manage, especially when they're an exceptionally powerful one. The FATE system Chaldea uses lifts this burden by providing mana upkeep for the Servant directly, but, in some cases the Servants summoned may lack certain abilities that would otherwise make them much stronger. Blame the imperfections in the system itself."

"Hmm… yeah I got nothing to compare that to." Ritsuka said, taking the earring back, "But, good to know. Hmm, wait, so that could mean if we meet Servants in the singularities, then we could summon them here to Chaldea if they give us something!"

"Yeah but there's no guarantee they'd remember anything about that time." Eil stated, "Servants don't carry perfect memories over from past Grail Wars. They have vague recollections of events, and are aware of other Servants in those Wars who were there with them, but otherwise any recollections they'd have are vague at best, and almost nonexistent at worse."

"Aw that sucks. But, just means I'll get to make friends with them twice over!" Ritsuka said, Eil chuckling while Marie sighed.

"Good thing you're optimistic." Eil remarked, then suddenly going rigid, "I just realized it though… if we're going to be taking care of summoning… Romani, we're not going to go and see _her,_ are we?"

"Going to see who?" Ritsuka asked, looking around as everyone else gained troubled or annoyed looks, "And why does everyone else look so dejected about it?"

* * *

"Whoa!? This was here in Chaldea? It looks out of place!"

Ritsuka let out an audible gasp as the merry band entered what could be best described as a Renaissance era workshop. All kinds of documents and books were strewn about various long tables, constructions from the scattered blueprints hanging on the walls and from the ceiling. What confused the red-heard more than anything was the variety of perturbed looks on Eil, Romani, and Marie's faces.

"I knew this was coming but I still don't like it." Eil muttered, giving a deep sigh, "I hate dealing with this one…"

"I can share that sentiment." Marie grumbled, pinching her nose.

"You know he… she… whatever, does kind of view you like a little sister, right?" Romani said, Marie shuddering.

"I… have no idea how to respond to that." Marie muttered.

"What are you guys talking about? You all seem pretty weirded out." Ritsuka noted, looking to Mash as the girl sighed, "Mash?"

"Well… you should see in a second." Mash said. On cue, a bunch of crashing noises came out of a nearby door that had been left ajar. A few colored flashes, more crashes, and then somebody yelping before an explosion sounded. And then seemingly mad laughter.

"Ahahahaha! I did it! I did it! Oh, I'm a genius, a genius I say!" A mad cackle accompanied the woman's voice that boomed out of the doorway before someone barreled out. The woman's appearance was one that was somehow instantly recognizable. A face known across the world straight out of a painting with the same kind of mysterious air to it. A face just like the Mona Lisa. Though the outfit was… certainly a thing of many questions, being some kind of blend of classical fashioning and modern styles. "It's complete!... oh, hey there."

"Ehhh?! You're the pretty lady who woke me up this morning!" Ritsuka shouted, pointing off to the woman, who only chuckled, while Romani, Eil, and Marie sighed again, "What was your name again? I remember you introduced yourself…"

"Ohh? You've already forgotten? Well, I did take you for a bit of a ditz, so I'm not too hurt by that." The brunette woman said, a hand on her hip.

"Ritsuka, meet Leonardo Da Vinci. Head of Chaldea's engineering department, and one of our resident Heroic Spirits." Marie stated, a heavy sigh coming from her.

"And a perennial pain in my ass." Eil stated, Ritsuka tilting her head.

"But I thought Da Vinci was a man. Not a pretty woman. She looks like the Mona Lisa!" Ritsuka stated, Eil sighing himself.

"Yeah that's kind of the thing. See, Servants can be effected by a general perception that the people have of them… now, consider just how closely associated Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa are. It's bar none his most famous work of art, both painting and mechanical wise."

"Ahh you flatter me Eil!" Da Vinci said, chuckling again, "By the way, when are you finally going to let me pain that portrait of you I asked about?"

"Not on your damn life."

"Ahh, such a wound. Can't you see how painful it is for an artist to be unable to preserve that kind of beauty?"

"Bite me! I'm pretty sure you're just making fun of me!"

"Well I mean you are really pretty." Ritsuka pointed out, Eil clicking his tongue, "But uh… Leonardo-san…"

"Oh you can just call me Da Vinci-chan."

"Uhm… s-sure… why is it you would appear looking like the Mona Lisa anyway?" Ritsuka's question got a groan to come from Eil and Marie, Romani just sighing. Mash though, looked a bit curious about it. Da Vinci herself looked more than a little smug.

"I was definitely a man, originally, but who says that kind of thing has to bind one from birth?" Da Vinci stuck up her (we'll keep it at that) nose in the air, the smug pride radiating from her, "I am one who always pursues beauty, even among myself. As a Servant I have become that ideal self I strived for, and it so happens my ideal self was encapsulated in the Mona Lisa. In a sense, this was completely unavoidable to my eyes."

…

"I can't tell if she's a pervert or an eccentric." Ritsuka noted, Eil putting a hand to his head.

"She's both." Eil remarked, "So just got get it out there, do I need to explain who I really am twice over, or do you already know that?"

"Hmm? What you mean the fact you're a Zvezda?" Da Vinci then chuckled, and Eil felt a sudden pit in his stomach, "I knew who you were the day you arrived at Chaldea! One of your ancestors was a good friend of mine in life, and I would never forget the traits your family possesses. Those eyes of yours are a dead giveaway young man. As beautiful as the star filled sky. Really it might as well be an ID tag!"

"They do stand out quite a bit." Mash remarked. Marie clearing her throat got the attention to change.

"Can we stop prattling on? We're here because Zvezda needs to summon a Servant. Can we get that taken care of sooner rather than later?" Marie bit, then looking to the ajar door, "What was it you were even working on back there though? I don't remember giving you permission for more expansions, Da Vinci."

"Hmm? That? I was just putting up the finishing touches on some chambers we could use. You know, help strengthen Servants by improving their Saint Graphs, things like that." Da Vinci said, her tone completely blasé about the idea even when it involved legendary heroes. "But a summoning? Haagh… you barely need me for that, but alright, let's go."

* * *

The chamber the group had been led to by Da Vinci was incredibly stark. Round and smooth, a shade of cold steel. The only things to see was the elevated pedestal mounting a massive shield on it. The shield was etched with mysterious characters across much of it's surface, and the single glance was enough for Eil to tell that it was a Noble Phantasm.

"So, that's it huh?" Eil said, Mash nodding.

"Yes. Due to the properties of the shield, it can be used as a catalyst for summoning, able to replace a summoning circle to simplify the process. By setting it on a leyline, I can also connect a Singularity to Chaldea so we can receive supplies and call more Servants." Mash explained.

"Huh, useful." Eil remarked, "But I guess you didn't have much time to do that in Fuyuki?"

"No. The situation was chaotic. Thankfully we ran into Caster. He was rather powerful." Mash said, Ritsuka nodding.

"He was a big help! I'll be summoning him here after your turn Eil. Good luck!" Ritsuka pat Eil on the shoulder, and he just gave a small chuckle.

"I'll be fine." The young man said, rubbing his right hand, looking at the Command Spells marking it.

"I'm pretty sure you already know this, but I'll say it anyway." Da Vinci said, her tone lacking her previous enthusiasm, "The FATE system used to be pretty spotty. I am obviously proof of one of it's only successes. Thanks to Mash's shield there though, we've been able to bring the Servant summoning rate to about 100 percent. Course it's main flaw is that since it's not like there's a Grail to serve as an incentive, you've gotta be compatible with the Servant and have them agree to help you based on that alone. A mutual contract of cooperation, rather than trying to nab some stupid holy grail. Now, you know the chant, right?... of course you do, you're a Zvezda."

"Well, I've got a version of it. It'll be fine." Eil said. His expression then went flat when everyone else promptly retreated through a door, reappearing behind the glass of the nearby bulkhead, the crackly of a sound system being turned on reaching his ears, "Wow, thanks for the support guys."

"Just in case of the event you summon a Servant of the unpleasant variety, or just a Berserker, we'll be watching from this bulkhead! Don't worry, you'll be perfectly fine… maybe." Da Vinci said, Eil putting a hand to his head as he sighed.

"You've got this Eil! Get a good one!" Ritsuka cheered.

"I'd prefer a powerful one." Marie huffed.

"Best of luck." Romani said, giving a meager thumbs up.

"Sorry." Mash bowed her head as she apologized.

Eil just sighed again and stepped closer to the shield, leaving a good five meters of distance between him and it.

He was familiar with the idea of summoning. His home back in Russia, his family's country of origin, had a massive library of every subject imaginable, one of them of course being about Heroic Spirits and the Grail Wars they were summoned to fight in. He'd read every kind of legend he could, familiarized himself with the historical and mythological figures who'd become those Heroic Spirits. What bothered him was the sense of uncertainty though. He didn't have a catalyst on him.

" _I'm definitely gonna need some luck."_ Eil thought, palming an item in his pocket, pulling it out to produce an ornate looking wristband, simple leather but one marked in gold with a blue gem inlaid into it. Something his parents had given him before he left for Chaldea. "For luck." is what they had said. He looped it onto his right wrist as he released a breath. Then he raised the arm up, his Command Spells in clear view as he leveled his vision over the shield.

The image he needed was simple. It was one that had been ingrained into his mind, a simple trigger to activate his Magic Circuits.

 _A hammer striking hot steel, the sparks that fly from it as the sound rings in his ears._

The "gate" opened. Mana poured through his body and activated his magic cricuits. A glow reached out form under the sleeve of his jacket and up to his hand. His Command Spells glowed softly in response, inciting a gentle sensation of heat to permeate his hand. The circle on the shield then glowed softly in response to the release of mana. He'd established the connection he needed.

He let out one more breath as his eyes closed. He didn't need his vision at the moment, only the knowledge as he let his mind connect, concentrating on his desires, his reasoning for calling the Servant.

" _Let Silver and Steel as the essence. Let Stone and the Archduke of contracts form the foundation. Let FATE be where my tribute is paid. Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall. Let the four cardinal gates close. Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching to the Kingdom twist."_

A light began to pulse through the chamber, small balls of light forming from the circle and arranging around it. Eil gripped his right arm with his left hand, opening his eyes to reveal that a glow had risen in them. His Command Spells also burned brighter, red light starting to drift from the marks as they seared hotter than before.

" _So heed my declaration! The foundation of Man creates your body, and your sword defends their future. If you adhere to this will and reason, then answer. On this oath of blood and steel, I am he who's guides are the stars, born of those defiant to the binding of fate. I seek not the Grail, but the balance of Man and the World. If you would heed my call, then I shall become he who would fell all evil, and restore the balance to this world by mine own hand!"_

A greater surge of energy washed out from the circle as the balls of light began to spin. They accelerated to the point here they became a seemingly solid ring of light. The wash of energy was like a wave spangled with stars. The energy in the center of the room had then concentrated as the circle began to expand as it glowed like a rainbow, bursting into three circles and expanding to the edges of the chamber.

" _From the Seventh Heaven, attended by three great words of power, come forth from the ring of restraint, guardian of the scales!"_

His Command Spells burned against the back of his hand like a flame. But compared to the pain he'd experienced the previous day that had resulted in his injury made this feel like nothing. A crack like thunder pierced his ears as the energy in the room all gathered, the rings collapsing in as the energy all burst upwards in a pillar of brilliant light.

This was magic in it's simplest form. Blinding, brilliant, primal, and terrifyingly powerful.

The event was simply put, violent. The room shook as if an earthquake had shook it, but stayed completely intact. The streaming pillar of energy stayed contained due to dampening technology in the ceiling. An outside observer likely would have panicked at the view, but, even this chaos soon died down, replaced by a steady stream as the pillar began getting smaller.

And within that pillar of sparking light, a silhouette appeared, stepping down from the pedestal as the light faded.

The immediate feature Eil noticed was how she was seemingly followed by some kind of shadow, but it was quick to vanish. The girl was young, she couldn't been much older than Eil himself, her body short, garbed in an ornate white gown, and from her shoulders fell a white fur cape bearing gold designs and blue trimming. Icy blue eyes were nearly covered by a fringe of white hair, the length of it falling well past her waist. And clutched in the girl's pale hands was a doll, the only features it being blonde hair with a crown and a dress made of laves, the place where a face should have been only being black and featureless.

She seemed dazed for a moment, registering her surroundings with a stoic form of confusion. Seemingly unfocused.

Eil also could have sworn the room now felt a few degrees colder. And that something was watching him, uncomfortably close to him as well.

The girl shifted a bit, her eyes moving downwards, gazing at the Command Spells on his hand. And with a smaller shift, it seemed she was looking at the wristband he was wearing as well.

"I came here in response to your summoning request." The girl said. Her voice was light, but one could sense wariness from it as she looked at Eil. "I ask of you: Are you my Master?"

Eil again noticed the girl's eyes drift to the wristband he had on, almost like she knew the item. But moreover, his thoughts were steeled. The girl's air was cold and imperious, the kind of presence you have when standing in front of royalty. But he couldn't dissuade the wariness he felt from her, it was like despite answering his summons, a distance is where she chose to remain.

"Yes, I am. My name is Eilwyn Zima la Zvezda." Eil lifted his right hand to reveal his Command Spells, and as his vision stayed on the girl, information flooded his mind. "If you're willing to help fight to save humanity, you can consider me as such."

"I see… well then, I'm Caster. You can call me Anastasia though." The girl said, then holding up the doll, "And this is Viy. He's with me. Take care of us."

"Of course… it's a pleasure to meet you, Lady Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova." Of note to how he spoke, Eil switched over from English to Russian, which seemed to surprise the Servant girl a bit, but it was only visible for a split second from a slight widening of her visible eye, Eil chuckling a bit, "I'm glad to welcome you to Chaldea."

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Would've gotten this up sooner but my internet was screwy the other night. Eesh. Definitely a good first addition to the team I would say, though a bit of extra summoning is in order to the group of course, heh! I plan for lots of Servants to be showing up though. Let's have some variety during the singularities yeah?**


	3. Chapter 2

Fate/Grand Order Alternative

 **Chapter 2: A Time Between**

"Well… this is certainly a lineup we've produced all of a sudden."

Things had been moved into one of the lounge rooms that wasn't too far from the Summoning Chamber. Aside from the Masters seated at one of the tables along with Mash and Marie, there were now three more Servants present in the group.

One was who Eil assumed to be the Caster who had assisted Ritsuka and Mash in Fuyuki. A blue haired, red eyed man who had long since lowered the hood of his robes to let the length of his hair move down completely. Eil's little scanning tricks, plus his knowledge of mythology in general, made it easy for him to identify the man. Cu Chulainn, Ulster's Child of Light. As for why he was a Caster over what Eil would've presumed a more typical Lancer summoning, Eil was positive it both had to do with the origins of the earring that Ritsuka used, but also the simple fact Cu was a fitting candidate for the class.

It was the _other two_ who were proving to be more than a little… _question worthy_ in Eil's eyes. Both were, simply enough, in the Saber Class. Both were young girls with identical features down to the smallest detail sans hairstyle, one with her hair in a prim bun, and the other in a looser ponytail with a black bow. One was dressed in blue, and the other in white. The blue one had an aura of calm sternness about her, while the white one bore an air of naivety and innocence.

The problem was, the name Eil had gotten for both: Artoria Pendragon. Or as the legends knew instead, _Arthur_ Pendragon. Though the one in white had also come with an extra addition: Lily.

" _I know what Chain Summoning is… but how the bloody hell do you end up Chain Summoning variants_ of the same Servant?!" Eil's thoughts countered his calm expression, though the slight widening in his eyes gave away his less-than-stoic thoughts. "So… Director, how the bloody hell are we gonna deal with referring to them?"

"Hm? You lot were sorting that one out?" Cu said, Eil clearing his throat.

"Well I mean after a while it'd get confusing if we just refer to you by Class. We already have two Casters and two Sabers off the bat so… well I think you can get my point." Eil remarked, leaning on a hand.

"Honestly I was just going to call everyone by their names anyway." Ritsuka said. Then Marie cleared her throat, all eyes turning to her.

"Let's at least leave it up to decision. For now it's not like there's many of them." Marie stated, folding her arms, "So, let me ask each of you, how would you like to be referred to while here at Chaldea?"

"Before that…" the blue Saber said, "I'd like to ask what the exact nature of our task here is. I'm already able to assume this isn't like an ordinary Grail War we've been summoned into."

"I've wanted to know that too." Anastasia remarked, glancing over from her seat, which had her placed a bit of a distance away from everyone else, "What is it that's exactly going on here?"

"I agree with the little ladies. This is definitely an odd situation you've summoned us into." Cu said, leaning on his wooden staff, "Two Masters only, and you're working together? Not exactly the normal rules of a Grail War."

"To call this a Grail War is something of a stretch. True, we're hunting down Grails, but that situation is… something else entirely." Marie said, "Though as it is…"

"In layman's terms…" Eil cut in suddenly, "The span of Greater Human History, to be completely blunt, was incinerated. The source of it are Singularities at key points of history where Quantum Time Locks were produced. So in short, Ritsuka and me, along with the help of you lot and whatever other Servants agree to help us along the way, are going to dive into those Singularities, find whatever caused the problem, kick it's ass, and restore things to the way they were before 2018 ends."

"What's a Quantum-whatever?" Ritsuka asked.

"Remember what I said about how history likes correcting itself? That."

"Oh!"

"Did it have to be explained in such a pedestrian manner?" Marie muttered, her look best described as incredulous.

"The kid just told it straight. There isn't a need to go embellishing things now is there?" Cu said, his tone about as casual as Eil's.

"A to the point explanation isn't bad." Blue-Saber said, "Also, I don't mind if you simply call me Artoria."

"And you can just call me Lily." The one in white said. Eil made the mental note that while technically the same person, the difference in auras made Artoria and Lily seem more like a pair of sisters instead of two different versions of the same individual.

"I found it satisfactory." Anastasia added. This simply prompted Marie to gain an even more incredulous expression.

"What? I… Ugh, I need to go do something else." With that, Marie stormed out of the lounge room, leaving the two Masters, the Demi-Servant, and the other four Servants.

"Well… we're not doing anything for a bit so… how're we gonna go about this now?" Eil said, leaning on a hand.

"Ah don't mind me. I'm just gonna look around the place, get myself familiar. Call me when ya' need me!" Cu waved as he stepped off, his form vanishing into light to signify he'd entered spirit form.

"Awww, I wanted to tell him about Fuyuki." Ritsuka muttered, folding her arms.

"Well, while we Servants don't always maintain a perfect memory of the Wars we've been in, we do retain _some_ memories." Artoria said, "In fact, I remember fighting him as a Lancer in Fuyuki myself. So there's a chance he may, at least in some form, remember something of what you're talking about."

"Really? Cool! So that means making friends should be easy!" Ritsuka cheered, throwing a fist up into the air.

"Well points for her optimism I suppose." Eil remarked, then looking to the remaining trio of Servants, "Speaking of names, feel free to just call me Eil. I don't really like the sound of "Master"… makes me feel weird."

"Same for me! I may not have summoned you, but just call me Ritsuka. I have to keep telling this one to do that!" Ritsuka made a point by poking Mash in the side, "Though I guess we're both Masters to each other's summons, huh?"

"Well you're not incorrect." Eil said, "Hmm… I don't think there's much else to talk about right now… besides a mission briefing, but I'm sure we'll take care of that when the uh… mess is sorted out. Parts of the facility are kind of in a mess right now due to what happened."

"Will do. Might I ask, is there some kind of training facility around here? I'd like a place where I could keep my skills sharp." Artoria said, Lily nodding herself.

"Me too! I need to get better at my swordplay, so I need plenty of training!" Lily said. And at that cue, Mash stood up.

"I can give both of you a tour around Chaldea if you want… uh, three of you." Mash glanced at Anastasia, who was just fiddling with her doll. The cold auraed girl merely glanced over at Mash, telling everything that could've been said. "Got it. Well then, this way you two."

"Thank you kindly."

"I appreciate it!"

As Mash left with the two Sabers following her, all Anastasia did was stand up and leave to go off in her own direction elsewhere. Which now only left the two Masters in the lounge room.

"AHH! I just remembered!" Ritsuka suddenly gained a panicked look. Her hand dove into the pocket of her jacket and produced a smartphone, which had a cutesy animal-themed case on it. The girl started furiously tapping at the screen, a near panicked look on her face, "Come on come on come on… are they working? AHAHAH! Yes yes yes! I was able to log in… I WAS ABLE TO LOG IN?! HOW?!"

"Uhhh… log into what?" Eil muttered. He angled his chair a bit and leaned over, Ritsuka obliging to the gesture and showing her phone screen. Eil, for a magus, was rather technologically savvy, mainly because of the family business involving a need to actually know this stuff. But to say he was someone who played mobile games would be an understatement. He'd dabbled in them here or there, but he'd always just preferred consoles or handhelds when he needed to kill time. "What is this?"

"Ehhh?! Have you ever played a gacha game before?" Eil's question was why Ritsuka was staring at him in such a surprised manner now.

"What? Don't you mean those little things in Japan where you turn it then some random toy comes out?"

"No no no! Those are gashapons! Different thing! Well, okay it's a similar concept actually…" Ritsuka had gone from waving her hand in front of Eil's face, to holding her chin, and then nearly shoving her phone into Eil's face, "What surprised me is that I can still log in! We're supposed to be cut off from everything right, so why does the internet still work?"

"Well I mean even if the surface is being incinerated I don't think that would really effect the orbiting satellites that much. Wait, no, these kind of things run on servers so… huh, that's actually a good question." Eil hummed as he put a hand on his chin, then looking back over at the red headed girl as she started tapping away on her phone, "So, I take it your something of a gamer?"

"Hm? Heck yeah I am! I've played everything under the sun! And… admittedly I also managed to sneak most of my consoles here with me, hehe… ah man, I still need to unpack all of my things! Ohh, I hope they didn't get damaged in all the explosions the other day!"

"Most people's personal belongings should be fine. A lot of us in Chaldea have been here for a while." Eil said, pulling out his own phone and opening it up.

"Really? Then how long as you been here, Eil-san?"

"Me? About six months. I got here ahead of A Team, but really I didn't do too much. Sure I was registered as a Master Candidate, but Marie… uh, the Director and I don't really get along the well. Ehehe… I pissed her off on day one, and since I made it a thing to only show up for things when I wanted to, well… heh, obvious result is obvious. We're kinda like oil and water. Only the oil is also on fire…"

"So… then one would be putting out the other, wouldn't it?"

"Have you ever lit oil on fire while it's above water?"

"No. I didn't do a lot of cooking back home."

Hmm." Eil gave a hum at the remark, then he gave a snap again, "Alright, so by now you basically know most of what there is to know about me. What about you Fujimaru…"

"Ritsuka. Just call me Ritsuka!"

"Alright, Ritsuka. What's the deal with you? I get you were pretty much last minute so, well, it begs the question."

At Eil's remark, Ritsuka hummed as she set her phone down, folding her arms as she hummed. Eil also felt himself drawing into the question of why her version of the basic Chaldea Master uniform had belts above and below her chest… which made them rather pronounced. He had to wonder who the hell designed them like that. "Well… there really isn't anything exciting about me. I was just a normal girl until now. I've got two pretty normal parents, and a brother who's the reliable type. But other than that… not really much else. I didn't even know I had the potential to be a mage until I went to that blood drive… that lady was really persistent."

"I guess they were kinda desperate to fill in numbes." Eil chuckled as he leaned back in his chair. Then a thought came to mind, "Well… I'm gonna go and find Marie."

"The director? Where do you think she went?" Ritsuka followed Eil as he left the room.

"Probably a place where she can blow off some steam. If I had to hazard a guess… probably one of the training rooms for magus." Eil said, his path down the halls leading to some lower areas, Ritsuka by now showing open confusing at where they were ending up. Added onto it, Eil could feel a particular feeling of coldness in the air. And it made him snicker a bit, _"She couldn't help but follow huh? You may be acting cold, but your nickname was Shvibzik. I doubt you're not quite as cold as you're acting right now, Anastasia."_

Even if his Servant was in spirit form right now, even from just the colder feeling in the air, Eil could sense that her presence was close. It was likely due to their link as Master and Servant. But, it amused him to know the outwardly cold girl was tailing him and Ritsuka despite her uninterested attitude earlier.

Eventually, the walk led the duo plus follower to a room simply marked "Magic Training Room."

"So what's in here?" Ritsuka said, poking her head in… only for Eil to immediately pull her back, a black bolt of energy promptly slamming into the wall where Ritsuka's head _had_ been seconds before, "Whoa!"

"That was a Gandr. Unless you wanna get sick for a day, don't get hit by one." Eil cautioned, Ritsuka nodding, keeping behind him with a wary look on as they moved into the room, the two ducking into the waiting area as another stray Gandr shot by them. When the two rose up to peer past it, they could see Marie darting around the open space, her finger pointed out like a gun, firing Gandr shots at holographic projections.

And she was looking close to exhausted to boot.

"Huh… guessing from the size of those bolts, she's putting a lot of mana into them." Eil remarked… and there was also a ball of fire that shot through the air next.

"She's really going at it isn't she?" Ritsuka remarked, Eil giving a sigh.

"She's going at it a bit _too_ hard is what's happening here."

Ritsuka looked at Eil with a marked amount of confusion on her face. He didn't blame her really. To the inexperienced, it was hard to tell when someone was actively exhausting themselves while using their magic until the signs because obvious. Eil however, was something of an expert in that regard, and he could catch how one would be growing exhausted from mana-expenditure before the physical signs began fully showing.

"I'm stopping her." Eil stood up and slammed his hand onto the nearby red button, prompting a buzzer to sound and the projections Marie was mercilessly blasting to cease appearing. The director turned as she heard it, a notably bitter expression forming as she spotted Eil approaching, "You know Director, it's not really a good idea to go burning through your mana that fast."

"Oh shut it." Marie bit, even if she was breathing heavily, her bangs matted to her forehead from sweat. It was obvious she was tired, "I was just… blowing off steam."

"Yeah but even for a magus as talented as you are, burning out your mana still isn't a good feeling. I'd know a bit about that myself." Eil pointed to his still wrapped arm to make the point, which only got Marie to look away. He couldn't tell if she was remembering the fact he, of all people, had saved her from being caught in that explosion-well, her and like fifteen other people-or if it was just her crabby attitude.

On the sides, Ritsuka had also creeped out of her and Eil's previous hiding spot.

"You don't need to worry yourself about those things." Marie muttered, "Just get prepared to head into the Singularity tomorrow and… w-whoaaa!"

To her surprise, when Marie tried to take a step forward, she suddenly stumbled on nothing. Eil promptly held an arm out and caught the falling girl. The young man then sighed, while Marie's face turned a light shade of red.

"See what I meant? You're talented Marie, but mana drain is still mana drain. I get that after everything that happened, you're stressed out. We all are, it's still pretty tense… but that doesn't mean you should go tiring yourself out like this." Eil said, shaking his head a bit, "It won't do you as much good as it'd do me and Ritsuka to tire ourselves out with training."

"I… know that!" Marie pushed Eil's arm away, stumbling a bit as she did, slamming her foot onto the floor, "But what else is there to do?! We're cut off from any other contact, everyone in Chaldea is all that's left of humanity, Lef betrayed us, and _of all things,_ I, one of the Ten Lords of the Clocktower, have to rely on one of the heretical Zvezda to solve this problem, as well as some random girl pulled off of the streets!"

"That's kinda harsh." Ritsuka noted, though she didn't seem if at all offended by the frustrated remark from the director. "I mean, come on, Mash and I beat that first Singularity, we can definitely do the rest! And we got a bunch of new Servants now, with more to come, right?"

"That's not the point!" Marie snapped, gripping at her hair a bit, "I'm an Animusphere, it's my duty to make sure humanity's future remains intact, and now we've got barely a year to try and fix the Human Order being _incinerated!_ As far as any of this goes, I've failed! Ugh… the only reason I was even here before was to step into the shoes my father left empty. I thought something like this wouldn't happen, I didn't even care about any of this! But now I… AGGHH! Why me!? Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?!"

"Been keeping that in for a while haven't you?" Eil gave a breath as he put a hand to his head, glancing through his fingers at Marie as she turned to him with a glare, "Look, this isn't a favorable situation for any of us Marie. We've got a hundred odd people left here in Chaldea, we're totally cut off from any kind of outside help, and I'm pretty sure we're gonna end up breaking several international laws along the way."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

" _But,_ even if we had this entire situation forced onto us, I don't think there's much of anything terribly wrong." Eil said, lowering his hand, showing, of all expressions to be having at the time, a smile had come to his face. "You said it yourself, we may as well have initiated a Grand Order… saving the Human Order doesn't sound like a bad thing in my book… Besides, I'm a Zvezda. Coming out against insurmountable odds is kind of our thing."

"And let's look on the bright side again! We already cleared one Singularity, and I only had two Servants with me. But now that we've got Eil and group of five Servants going in, who knows how much better we'll do with numbers like that!" Ritsuka said, an optimistic smile on her face.

"Yes, maybe you two can do something… you can actually _contribute_ to all of this." Marie remarked, her hands balling up, "I can't even be a Master myself. What else am I going to do but sit on the sidelines and bark orders? That's not doing anything, that's not proving I can bear the responsibility this mission requires!"

" _So that's what it is huh? She's looking for a reason of her own. And it doesn't help with everything that's gone down… of course she'd be emotional. From the objective standpoint, she's failed in her mission and can't even do anything to try and fix it but rely on others."_ Eil thought, then he gave a sigh. With a small step forward and a small pull, he pulled Marie into a somewhat tentative, but still willing, embrace. Which promptly caused the girl's face to go red while Ritsuka made a surprised sound.

"H-Huh?! W-What are you doing?! Let go of me!" Marie snapped.

"You need to stop beating yourself up and take a look around you." Eil said, his tone calm as he stepped back, "Sure, things look hopeless now, but that doesn't mean things can't be salvaged. Just keep your eyes forward. The Zvezda philosophy is this…" Eil then raised a hand up, a finger pointing upwards, "As long as there's still stars in the sky, no matter where you are, then it means a path forward is clear. We Zvezdas take the stars are our guide. So, my belief is no matter the odds, you can always pull through. Just keep your eyes forward, and don't stop moving."

"W-What is with that… what's with you?" Marie looked somewhere between shocked and surprised. Eil just gave a chuckle as he lowered his arm, and the smile on his face downright made the white haired girl flinch as her face suddenly went red, then she looked down, "You spend six months acting distant with everyone, and now this… seriously, what's with you?"

"Well… I guess you could say it was me being on the cautious side. But… there isn't really a need for that anymore." Eil replied, putting his arms behind his head.

"Unbelievable…" Marie muttered, promptly turning on her heel and leaving the room. Eil just sighed as she did, but, he had caught her bringing her sleeve up to her eyes.

"Uhm… so, not to jump in like that but… Eil, maybe you were being a bit to forward with that." Ritsuka said, Eil looking at her with a raised brow, "You know, the hug!"

"What, why would that… ugh, right, you're Japanese. Really conservative culture." Eil sighed again, then held up a finger in a "matter of fact" way, "Here's a note for ya': In western cultures, physical contact can be seen as a sign of comfort to people, not just one of intimacy. As far as our thoughts go, sometimes you just need to hug someone to help them feel better. Hell it's actually scientific fact!"

"Ehhhhh?" Ritsuka had an expression like that of someone who'd just had whatever perceptions they'd had of a topic completely flipped on their head for her. Then her surprise turned to shouting, "Wait if that is true then why was I always told hugging someone was coming on to hard?! Is that kind of mindset why manga always acts like handholding is a big deal?! Is it really not that big of a problem?!"

"No it's… it's really not that much of a problem…"

"Wow… now a lot of my favorite romance manga feel pathetic."

"You… are a strange person."

"That's what my mom and brother kept telling me."

"But… the fun kind of strange."

Ritsuka chuckled as Eil made the remark, the red headed girl turning to leave, giving a wave as she went for the door.

"Alright, talk later! I'm gonna go find Mash and see how she's doing!"

"You do that. And don't get lost in the halls, they're kinda twisting on the way back up!" Eil waved back as Ritsuka left. Shortly after, he himself left the room, simply intend to head back to his own room and lounge around for a while… though what with that particular cold presence following him the entire way, he made a point to stop once he reached one of the outer halls. "Alright Anastasia, I know you've been following me in spirit form the entire time. You can stop hiding."

"Of course you would be aware." As Eil turned, the shimmer in the air then produced the cold-auraed girl before him. "You're certainly something of an odd person."

"Heh, yeah, well, comes with the territory of being a magus." Eil said, putting his right hand near his head. And again, he caught Anastasia's gaze move towards the wristband. Which then brought his attention to it as well, "I've got you looking at this a few times since I summoned you. Something off about it to ya?"

"It's just the fashioning of it. It's familiar… it also looks rather old." Anastasia said, Eil looking closely at the item in question.

"Well you're not that incorrect. I don't know a lot about it though but… I think the story was my great-grandfather got it as a gift from a friend… let's see, I think it was… around the mid-1910s I think?" Eil muttered, giving a hum as he tapped a finger on his arm. Then he snapped as a light bulb went off. "Ah, right! I remember now! My great-grandfather got it before he left working with the… ohhhhkaayyyy that suddenly makes me feel bad…"

"I thought your name sounded familiar. Zima la Zvezda… it made me remember something." Anastasia said, Eil looking at her with a bit of surprise, the girl giving a hum. "My memory about it is kind of vague… but I do remember my father having known another magus for a few years. I at least remember what he looked like. Somewhat like you actually, with long hair the same color has yours… and eyes that were that same odd color of blue."

"Ehehehe… well it is an inherited trait after all." Eil remarked, chuckling a bit awkwardly. _"I suddenly feel like that got her to lighten up… a bit."_

"So… considering it seems there was a point one of your relatives worked with my father…" Eil suddenly got a new tone to Anastasia's voice, "Does that mean the sentiment would come around again, even a century later?"

"Eheh, who's the Master here again?" Eil chuckled, returning the remark with his, then humming, "But… advisor to the Grand Duchess huh? Hehehhehe, doesn't sound too bad of a role to be in if ya' ask me."

"Ah, so you agree." Anastasia hummed. Eil then again felt like _something_ was watching him from somewhere else. Then Anastasia sighed, "Viy, he's fine. If he's the great-grandson of one of father's advisors… then I suppose I can allow him the station he has as the one who summoned me."

" _How the hell does that work out? Heh… guess it's that imperious upbringing of hers."_ Eil gave a sigh as the thought came to him, the came a feeling of relief as that other presence faded… yet still felt like it was there in a form, "So… just to ask, is Viy actually some kind of familiar you have with you?"

"Viy is Viy." Anastasia said, holding out the doll she was holding, "But yes. In a way."

"Ahh… coulda just said that." Eil said. He as confused about the doll itself, but, considering it's kind of odd looks… there was a chance Viy was bound to the doll, since in some cases a familiar's form wasn't so concrete of a thing as it happened.

"And… I didn't mention it before… but is something wrong with your hair? There's a lot of it sticking up." Anastasia then pointed up, Eil glancing up… then noticed something brushed against his nape. With a quick move of his hand, he then came to feel something _way_ toosoft on his head.

"Oh… that's just Fou." Eil said, the mentioned creature than sitting up, jumping down to his shoulder, Eil chuckling as he scratched the animal on his chin, "This little guy is sort of like Chaldea's mascot. For a while he was just a little rumor, then he went and basically hooked himself to me and Mash. And now Ritsuka I guess."

"Is he some kind of cat?"

"Uh… we don't really know what he is." Eil remarked. It was easy to notice Anastasia was staring at Fou rather intently, heck the creature was mewling at him in seeming annoyance… or maybe something else. Sometimes it was hard to tell what Fou was getting at due to his lack of connotations to his noises. But… maybe the Servant was staring because he liked cute things? "So… I take it this means you're at least willing to talk to me, yeah?"

"As I said, you're related to one of my father's advisors. I can at least put more trust in you at the start than I could some others. But for now… that's about it. Don't think it's much more than that." The imperious girl then sauntered past him with that. Though it only prompted Eil to give a chuckle.

"Yeah, sure… we'll see how long that goes on for." Eil said, pocketing his hands.

"Fou, fou!"

"What?"

"Fouuu! Kyuuu!"

"What, do I think she's cute?"

"Fou!"

"Well… yeah of course she is but… wait… you were getting at something else weren't you?"

Eil could swear Fou was smirking at him at the moment. Though he just shook it off.

"Ugh whatever… hmm… y'know, maybe I should go find Mash and talk to her… hmm, but where could she be? She's showing Artoria and Lily around, isn't she?"

"If you want, I could help you out there."

"WHOA?!"

Eil nearly jumped when Cu's voice suddenly reached him, and when she shot around, the Caster was already laughing at his reaction, not helped that Eil looked poised to retaliate in some manner.

"Don't do that!" Eil growled, Cu's laughter dying down to chuckles.

"Sorry. Admittedly, I was tailing you just like that icy girl. You're just kind of an interesting case." Cu said, putting his staff over his shoulders. "If you wanna know, the shield girl finished up her tour while you and my Master were dealing with that Director girl. I think she went to the library."

"Huh… actually kind typical. Alright then, thanks… uh… what should I call you?" Eil asked, which prompted the Caster to give a hum.

"That is a good question. Odds are you could possibly summon another me here. Probably a Lancer… hmm, to differentiate between us… well, as I'm not a Lancer, I could say you could use my original name, Setanta… though that just brings up some memories…"

"Your mentor, Scathach, right?"

"Exactly, how'd you guess?"

"Because I also had a mentor whose name makes me wince whenever I say his name."

"Ah. I thought we had some kind of kinship."

Both young men just hummed at the remark, Eil folding his arms.

"Eh, I'll just call ya' Cu for now. If we do summon your Lancer self, we'll sort it out then."

"Fine by me. Aight, I'll be wandering around. See ya later, Star Boy."

Eil gave a hum as Cu left while vanishing into spirit form, tilting his head a bit.

"You think he could've called me by my name too."

* * *

The warm environment of the library was a welcome return for Eil. The moment he entered the place, Fou jumped from his shoulders and ran off, no doubt to preemptively try and find Mash ahead of him. He'd been thinking of stopping by here as it was. It'd probably do him some good to refresh himself on the histories of his Servants… as possibly unpleasant as some of those stories might be.

But, he'd settle on that later. For now, he was intent to find Mash and at least discuss _something._ Not like they'd talked very much in the six months he'd been at Chaldea… but he had been more aloof when they first met due to him trying to keep some distance here and there.

His search didn't take long, since as he expected, Mash was in the central area of the library, seated at the table with a few books around her. Of anything, the times Eil and Mash _had_ met had usually been while they happened to both be in the library. Probably the one thing both knew they had in common was that they liked reading. And as he guessed, Fou was well ahead of him, already getting Mash's attention by leaping right onto the table.

"Oh, Fou. What brings you here?" The bespectacled girl looked to the side when Fou gesture to the side with his ears, Eil giving a wave as he approached.

"Hey." Eil said, Mash nodding.

"Ah… h-hello Colt… Zvezda. Sorry, I'm not quite used to that."

"It's fine. You've known me as Coltheart for the past six months, I don't blame you. Though I would prefer if you called me Eil at the least."

"N-No, I couldn't possibly…"

"I insist you do." Eil said, holding up a hand, "Look, I know that with my standoffish attitude before that I didn't wanna quite give a good first impression. But, with things are they are now, well… I figured it'd be a good idea to try and fix that, y'know? Especially since we're gonna be working together from hereon out."

"I see what you mean." Mash said, closing the book she'd been reading after placing a marker in it. Eil took note of the cover. _Le Morte de Arthur._ Seems like she was reading up on Arthurian legends. Which made sense considering who she'd just met and all of that. Eil then thought he'd definitely need to check in on Artoria and Lily next. They might still be in the training room if he's lucky. "It's just… I don't really think there's a lot about me you don't already know. There wouldn't be a lot to talk about."

"Ah now don't say that." Eil said, taking a seat, "There's always something to talk about with someone. You just gotta get a bit specific. Sure I know you like reading, but what do you _like_ reading the most? Is there anything you really wanna do? Or… just find something random to talk about and then go from there. Striking up a conversation isn't always the hardest thing to do."

"Right those… are open topics." Mash put a hand on her chin as she hummed. "Though… well, admittedly… I'm kind of curious about you. Like… how you were raised, what it's like outside of Chaldea."

"Me? Hahaha… well, snow is actually something I'm pretty used to seeing." Eil said, twirling a bit of his hair, "I grew up at my family's main estate in Russia. We lived outside of a small city pretty close to Moscow. Thanks to all the wards that were set up, most people thought the mansion was a ghost house, and only rumors hinted that we lived there. Pretty handy for keeping Mage Association types away."

"I see…"

"And my training was… kind of unorthodox. I mean, Asterism is a kind of strange magecraft as it is, but I also learned martial arts. In fact, I did a lot of traveling with my parents when I was a kid in order to learn various things about the world. Also I guess it was just to get me used to it. My folks did a lot of traveling around for stuff. So there'd be times they were out of the house for a while. If it would be for a long time, I'd be sent to live with relatives elsewhere. Other than that, unless you _want_ specifics about the utter hell that was my training… that's about everything up until now."

"Hmm… well… I don't exactly have much to say in return to that." Mash said, looking back down at the books, "I've spent my entire life here in Chaldea. All the things Senpai likely sees as normal parts of life are only things I could dream of. Going to big, modern cities, being able to see the world…"

"Well… with all the stuff that's gonna be happening, who knows, you might just get to see some of that yourself." Eil remarked, chuckling, "Actually, aside from the potential we may be up against the freaking Ars Goetia, traveling to different important eras in human history sounds fun. If my theory holds true, we may even make some marks on potential timelines!"

"Theory? Oh… this has to do with the Quantum Time Locks, right?"

"Yeah. My theory right now is that, even if we clear out a Singularity and set it back on course for "proper history", my thoughts are, the effected timeline of the singularity might split off into something new once the Human Order is restored. So… there's a chance the things we do in the Singularities, both the big ones and any that pop up because of the effects they're causing, we may actually make an impact on at least a couple aspects of history, even if they're not our own."

"Ohh… I see what you mean." Mash hummed, a hand on her chin again, "With the way history functions… that actually isn't out of the realm of possibility. That's… actually incredible. How did you come up with that idea?"

"Hm? I dunno, I just figured it might as well be possible. The Singularities may change, but the results we form in them may be different in the effect they have on that branch of history. Like with the example I have to Ritsuka, history will always attempt to move onto it's direct course as long as humanity has a future. Some names may change around, and maybe an extra event or two for ones that weren't time-locked, but otherwise, I'm pretty sure it'd a new "possibility" of mankind's progression." Eil said.

"Progression huh?" Mash hummed again, then looked directly at Eil, "So… what do you think about those kidns of things? Like… how humanity moves into the future? And how one day… you won't be around anymore to see what happens. That… one day, you'll die, and your chance to experience things will end with no further input from you."

"Mortality is it? Pretty deep question to be asking." Eil remarked, then giving a breath as he tilted his head back and forth in thought, "I guess… I don't think I'm really afraid of death."

"Huh?"

"Yeah… I guess it's easier to say I've long accepted the fact I'm mortal. Sure like a lot of magi I can probably find a way to extend my life to go on for maybe an extra century or so and still keep myself in working order. Really it depends on the magus and their talents. But… I think life is all about the experiences you have. Human lives may in retrospect be rather short… but even with those short lives, we can make the kind of changes that alter history itself."

"I-I see…"

"Course though, not like I plan on dying any time soon. I don't have plans to live forever, but like hell I'm dying young." Eil then suddenly got the sense that what he said hit some kind of chord in Mash. Hopefully it wasn't too bad, "Ah man… I came here to chat with you and then it ended up with me doing most of the talking…"

"W-Well… I did ask." Mash replied, then humming, opening the book in front of her again, "Actually… maybe you could help me with my research? Since we'll be summoning more Servants, I want to refresh myself on what I know about them. So that, if we do meet them in the Singularities, then maybe I can help Senpai know who they are."

"Some things would be common knowledge but… I see the point. Though… considering Artoria and Lily…" Eil's statement got him and Mash to suddenly go silent for a moment, "What do you think the odds are we're going to keep getting weirded out by some of the Servants we meet?"

"High. Very high." Mash said, her glasses suddenly going opaque, "So uhm… where I am now. It's about Lancelot and Guinevere… what else do you know about that?"

"Oh, that… well, the initial version started off different, but, over time it changed up… you know, trading stories, evolution of, things all that. Once it got Christianized, that's when some context altered… hmm… maybe we can ask Artoria about it… if she's willing to anyway."

"Right… that might be interesting actually. Show the stories we have, and see what they say about them. That would be an interesting to way to learn what was right and what was incorrect." Mash said, then the tapped a closed hand to the palm of another, "I got an idea! We could write a journal about what we learn from the Servants to use as later reference!"

"Ah, so, kind of like some sort of field guide on Servants or something?"

"W-Well not quite like that. That almost feels like making records about animals. I think… maybe more like a sort of… hmm, an interview book? Or… something like that."

"Hehehahahaha! Well, sounds good to me. So… chapter one… 'King Arthur'… with a question mark."

"Hmhmhm… sounds good." Mash chuckled, clearing her throat a bit, "Well then… I'll say it out loud. It's good to be working with you, Zve… _ahem,_ Eil."

"There we go. Nice to be working with you too Mash."

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Well I finally got my ass in gear and finished London… now for America… geezus I am way behind most people in Grand Order. Whatevs. Makes referencing things as this goes on easier for me, thank you cutscene archives! Hahahaha! Now, time to get going! To Orleans we go!**


	4. Chapter 3

Fate/Grand Order Alternative

 **Chapter 3: A Journey Begins**

"Mash said Artoria and Lily should still be in the large training room. I wonder… what does it look like when Servants are training with each other?"

Eil kept that curious thought in mind as he proceeded down to the other facility for combat training in Chaldea. A wonder of technology that could form a complete environment within it to train in all kinds of environments and against more complicated simulated opponents. Eil remembered his initial trip to Chaldea involving a simulated Rayshift and his first test at handling commanding Servants in combat… even if the Servants had merely been virtual recreations without proper personalities.

Thankfully, like the smaller training room, there was a safe area that in the case for this training room, was the immediate entrance, with the glass looking out into the active simulated space. Eil could already here the sounds of action from within… and he found himself stopping dead once he got a good view of things.

He wasn't even really sure "training" was a proper word that he could use. He knew even a weak Servant was far above a human in basic abilities, but seeing two Servants of a higher standing spar was… intense. While his eyes were able to keep track of the two Sabers with only a little bit of trouble, with how intense the two were in the "spar" it just dredged up the memories of his own training under his father… and the utter hell it had been for him to go through.

" _Servants are insane!"_ Eil thought, but there was more he noticed. _"They may be similar… but, Lily obviously isn't quite as good with a sword as Artoria. I guess it's that difference in experience between them. Despite how she looks, if Artoria is from her time as king, then she's at least in her mid-twenties… so Lily must be from the period before she became the king of Britain. Servants are not just insane… but confusing as hell."_

With a burst through the air Eil felt even _past_ the glass barrier, the spar ended with Artoria deflecting Lily's sword and aiming her hidden blade at her other self's throat, which lowered as Lily sighed and sunk to the ground.

"Well that was… something." Eil poked his head out through the door into the training room, which began returning to it's normal, stark white appearance. "I knew Servants were powerful, but seeing you two spar might just make me develop an inferiority complex."

"It's true that Servants have stronger basic abilities, but you shouldn't feel anything about that in terms of inferiority." Artoria said, raising a brow when Eil made a noise at the fact she clearly missed how he was joking.

"Uhm… I think Master was joking." Lily said, awkwardly chuckling a bit.

"Ah, right, of course. Sorry, it's just… humor doesn't always get across." Artoria cleared her throat as she spoke, Eil just waving a hand.

"Eh forget about it." Eil responded. "I kinda just wanted to take a moment to chat. Considering the situation, well… y'know."

"Has the world really been incinerated? Something like that feels hard to believe could happen." Lily said, Eil putting a hand behind his head.

"That's what we have to go off of. CHALDEAS, and the near-future observation lens, SHEBA, don't see a future for Humanity past 2018 and is unable to observe any other time period besides the ones contained in the Singularities. You could say Chaldea is in something of a bubble between time… for now anyway." Eil said, Artoria giving a hum.

"So you could say we're on a time limit. That certainly complicates matters. Especially when we have nary an idea what kind of enemies we'll face going forward." Artoria's words rang true enough Eil's head hung a bit. "But, I find it interesting. A Holy Grail War that takes place across history, it'll be quite the journey."

"You sound so experienced!" Lily said, Artoria chuckling.

"I've been in a couple Grail Wars myself. My memories of them may be fuzzy, but experience is experience." Artoria stated, a hint of pride to her voice, Eil giving a curious hum.

"So Servants can at least keep some memories of past wars. Anything specific you can remember, Artoria?" Eil asked this as they moved out into the halls, and Artoria gave a hum as they walked along, the moment also coming with her armor vanishing and leaving only the fancy blue dress that had been beneath it.

"Well, again, the memories can be rather fuzzy, it's sort of like I'm trying to remember a dream." Artoria said, then looking over at Eil, taking a moment to look him over a bit closer, "But… for some reason, when I look at you it reminds me of something. Though it's sort of… well I suppose I would say not very pleasant."

"Ehhh? Well… then again my family kind of has a reputation when it comes to things." Eil muttered, Artoria giving a hum.

"I will admit the name Zvezda makes me feel a little uneasy for some reason. But, I prefer to judge someone on their actions." Artoria stopped in place, Eil turning to face the Servant, Lily leaning in a bit, "You summoned me here, Eil. I'd like to see how you prove yourself once we begin."

"Heh… a challenge from King Arthur eh? I suppose I don't have much of a choice but to accept then, don't I?"

"No, no you don't." Artoria said, holding a hand out, Eil chuckling and accepting the hand shake.

"Uhm… also, please take care of me as well!" Lily said, pumping her arms, "I may be inexperienced, but I still want to be of help to you, Master!"

"Like I said, just call me Eil. Master just doesn't suit a guy like me." Eil said, casually flipping a hand. "And I don't think I'd mind sparring against either of you now and again, for the record. I may not be a Servant but I'm rather handy with a good number of weapons."

"Really? A magus who can handle weapons? Hahaha, interesting. You're definitely not typical if that's the case." Artoria said, Eil snickering.

"Zvezdas are anything _but_ ordinary magi."

* * *

"Da Vinci Punch!"

"GOUF-AAGH!"

Eil shot awake at the sudden impact to his chest, a wheeze leaving his throat as he flopped back.

"Wh-what the hell…" Eil grumbled, an eye twitching as he looked over when he heard laughter, a twitch coming at his forehead as he saw Da Vinci trying despertately to keep herself in check… and failing.

"Ahahaha! You said Gouf! Who shouts the same of a Mobile Suit when they get punched?" Da Vinci laughed, Eil giving a low growl at her. "What? You weren't waking up when Fou tried!"

"So you punched me in the gut!?" Eil snapped, pulling his phone off the night stand and checking the time. "Geh?! It's freaking four o'clock!?"

"Ah yeah, I had some things I wanted to manage before you and Ritsuka went into the Singularity today." Da Vinci stated, Eil grumbling as he patted down some bits of his hair that were sticking up. "Well? Don't be a slow poke!"

"Yeah yeah." Eil slid off the bed and threw on his jacket as Da Vinci trotted out of the room, Fou jumping up to Eil's shoulder as he followed the Servant out. The walk to the workshop was quiet aside from Da Vinci humming some kind of tune, and she spun as she entered it.

"Sorry for the wait Ritsuka, you didn't fall asleep again did you?" Da Vinci said, Eil peering in to find Ritsuka nodding from a chair, and despite the non-verbal answer, the red head looked about ready to flop over into sleep again. Heck she wasn't even out of her night clothes.

"Did you drag her into here or something?" Eil muttered, Da Vinci just chuckling. Eil bent down a bit and waved a hand in Ritsuka's face, the groggy girl looking at him. "You okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah… I was just up late. Had to… huaaagh… use up my… stamina in… my games… zzzz…" With that answer, Ritsuka lolled forward and her head plonked onto Eil's non-occupied shoulder.

"She fell asleep!" Eil yelped, putting his hands on Ritsuka's shoulders, the sleeping girl lolling about. "Hey, come on! I'm not dealing with Da Vinci alone here!"

"I-I'm awake." Ritsuka muttered, barely managing to get the words out, rubbing her eyes. "What are we even here for?"

"The answer is right here." Da Vinci stepped out and set something on the table, Eil leaning over to look while Ritsuka flopped down onto the table.

"Cards?" Eil muttered, picking up one of the gold-backed items, Da Vinci chuckling.

"Correct, but also wrong!" Da Vinci said, throwing a hand forward, "Do you two know what a Saint Graph is?"

"Nope." Ritsuka murmured.

"Yes but you're going to say it anyway won't you?" Eil murmured, turning over the card to see that it bore the image of a robed sage on it, "Caster" being at the base of it. And in a small flash, the face of the card changed into a portrait image of Anastasia, to the surprise of Eil, making him flinch a bit.

"Correct." Da Vinci said, plucking the card Eil was holding. "These cards are merely physical representations of them. A Saint Graph is the "record" of a Servant so to say. It holds the crystallization of all of their accumulated knowledge and experiences, which is why Servants who have been in many Grail Wars are capable of growing as people, even though they may be long dead. Those fleeting memories of where and when they have fought before, things from those eras that influenced them, all of them are recorded onto the Saint Graph."

"They're also decidedly easy to influence." Eil added, Da Vinci pouting at him, while Ritsuka, still groggy looking, at least looked to be paying attention. "It's entirely possible the state of the World can influence the Saint Graph of a Servant… or if enough of a difference is made, for the Graph to split, and produce a new version of that very Servant that can manifest. For example, Artoria and Lily."

"True." Da Vinci added, "Though Heroic Spirits are indeed complicated. I mean, take myself for example! In life I was a man, but, thanks to the influence of my fame, I took on the appearance of the Mona Lisa. We Heroic Spirits are unique beings, very often effected by the perceptions Humanity has on us."

"So like… could purely fictional characters be summoned?" Ritsuka asked, Da Vinci giving a hum.

"I wouldn't say it's impossible. Like I said, we Heroic Spirits are colored by the perceptions of our legends and history. I wouldn't say it's out of the realm of possibility, especially for the FATE system." Da Vinci's statement got Eail to raise a brow, and the inventory chuckled. "You see, that is something else I should explain as well. As time and how it branches is infinite, so is the number of ways in which a persons life could. But, because the World can only maintain so many timelines and continue working properly, some of those timelines have to be cut off."

"Like pruning a tree?" Ritsuka asked.

"Correct!" Da Vinci said. "Now, because the nature of the Singularities will no doubt be far different than they were in history, it is very possible you will encounter versions of Heroic Spirits that would normally not be able to exist."

"What are you getting at?" Eil inquired.

"You see, the FATE system is able to scan Servants, to tap into the records. So, if you encounter one of these new Servants, then FATE would be able to tap into their new record, and become capable of summoning them here to Chaldea as a new Servant." Da Vinci flipped about the other cards, putting her hands on her waist. "So be sure to summon regularly, you never know what you'll get! Though… I do think we have a few catalysts in storage. The Director did make it explicit that Team A was going to attempt to summon particular Servants."

"We'll have to check in on those then." Eil said, a hand shooting over and stopping Ritsuka from having her head go and slam into the table by grabbing her shirt's collar. "There's something else, isn't there?"

"Actually yes. I took a peek at where you two are headed today, and I whipped up a couple of Mystic Codes to help you blend in!" Da Vinci reached under the table and produced a couple of plastic wrapped bundles, Ritsuka immediately perking up at the sight of them. "Your Chaldea uniforms should be plenty, but, I figured it would be better for you two if you went into the Singularity with something… period appropriate. They have the same specifications as the basic uniform, so you should get used to them easily."

"New outfit! Cool!" Ritsuka immediately grabbed the wrapped package that Da Vinci had set near her.

"There's a changing room right over there, feel free to get changed up." Da Vinci downright grabbed Eil and dragged him over, Ritsuka whooping as she dashed off ahead of them, Eil grumbling as he was thrown into the other space, Da Vinci promptly chucking the wrapped clothes at his face.

"Dammit!" Eil muttered, grabbing the package as it slid down, looking at Fou as the animal hopped onto the nearby bench. "Da Vinci just has no sense of hearing anything at times, doesn't she?"

"Fou fou!" Fou responded, Eil shrugging.

He tore the plastic off of the clothing and flicked it all out, muttering when some of the clothing items fell to the floor, Fou making a snickering sound that earned the animal a glare from the magus. A few moments of rustling cloth later, and Eil had swapped into the outfit.

It was simple, to say the least. He recognized the styling as something akin to what someone from the middle ages or early Renaissance wound wear. A bright grey tunic and black slacks underneath a blue-grey cloak that also bore a hood with it, and covering Eil's forearms in place of sleeves were a pair of leather fingerless gloves and armguards of a similar material. He tapped his feet to get the boots to adjust correctly.

"Despite the style… this is actually pretty comfortable and light." Eil hummed as he adjusted the cloak. With the quick decision to do a test, a flick of his right hand caused a dagger to form in his palm. Leveling the blade to the left wrist guard, he struck it, and surprisingly, sparks flew from the impact area, and not a scratch was on the wrist guard after the blade had left it. "A defensive enchantment huh? That'll be useful since I don't plan to sit on the backlines doing nothing."

Fou made a mewl as he hopped up to Eil's shoulder, promptly worming his way into the hood of the cloak and poking his head out.

"So you're gonna camp in there are ya?" Eil remarked, the dagger vanishing into drifts of blue light.

"Fou!"

"Alright, let's check on Ritsuka." Eil said, stepping over to the next curtain, then stopping dead. "Hey, Ritsuka? If I open up the curtain I'm not gonna see something I shouldn't see without permission, will I?"

"I don't take that long to get changed!" Ritsuka replied, throwing the curtain open herself, "Hehe, whaddya think? I'm just the cutest, aren't I?"

Ritsuka's own ensemble was akin to Eil's, practically a genderbent version of the outfit. A light grey dress with sleeves stopping at her mid forearm, ending just at her knees to expose the leggings beneath. It also came with a cloak of its own, this one a dark red color opposed to Eil's blue one… and yet she still had on the same yellow scrunchie as before.

"It's nice and all but… you're still gonna wear that scrunchie? It kinda you know… messes with the aesthetic."

"It's sort of the only one I have."

"Seriously? Did you _not_ pack extras?!"

"Hey don't rag! This one is lucky! I've gotten many a five star outside of rate ups with this on!"

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

"Ohhh, looking good you two, you'll fit right in when you're in the Singularity!" Da Vinci chuckled as she leaned on the door frame. "Now let's see… hmm, oh, it's five already! Then Mash should be here in about three, two…"

"Senpai? Are you in here?" Mash's voice came in through the room, and the trio proceeded out into the main workshop, the glasses wearing girl showing a bit of surprise as Eil and Ritsuka exited in their new outfits. "Ah, senpai, Eil! What's with the clothes?"

"Mystic Codes for the Singularity, made by yours truly!" Da Vinci said, throwing an arm up. "Alright, you lot go and do your thing, I'll be here taking care of some things of my own."

"Thanks for the outfits Da Vinci-chan!" Ritsuka said, Da Vinci just waving as she ducked into another room, and sounds immediately began coming from it. "And Mash, again with the senpai thing! Just call me Ritsuka, okay?"

"It's uuh… sort of like impulse." Mash said, clearing her throat. "I found the note Da Vinci left. I was, actually about to get you two. Things are almost ready for us to head to the Singularity. The other Servants should already be on standby. Also, did you two sleep well?"

"Like a log!" Ritsuka said.

"I was fine… until Da Vinci woke me up with a punch to the gut." Eil muttered, his eye twitching when the woman laughed from the other room. "Let's get to the briefing before I get the urge to hurt her."

"Right, let's hurry." Mash said.

* * *

The door to the CHALDEAS room opened up, Eil, Ritsuka, and Mash entering. Already waiting for them was Romani and Marie, along with the four other Servants.

"Good morning you two. Sleep well?" Romani asked, getting nods from the two Masters. "Alright then, now that everyone is here, let's begin the briefing. Director?"

"First off, let me go over what you two will be doing again." Marie said, all eyes on her now. "Your first priority is the investigation and correction of the Singularities. Each one at one of Humanities most critical turning points of that era. Without events like those, our civilization would never have come as far as it has. You could say they are "pivotal" to the progression of the Human Order. Travel to the era, find out what's caused the anomaly within the Singularity, and correct it. If you don't, 2019 will never be reached, and Humanity will be extinct by the end of 2018. That will be your first objective, the basic principle of all upcoming operations."

"And what's the second?" Ritsuka asked, Marie looking a tad annoyed.

"That one should be obvious. The second objective of your operation is to investigate the Holy Grail. Dr. Roman expects that the anomalies may have to do with the Holy Grail. As you likely know, it's a relic that can grant wishes. It contains an immense amount of magical energy. Le-Flauros, likely got his hands on one, somehow, and misused its power. At least, that's Dr. Roman's theory."

"Not to sound rude, but I am right here." Romani said, Marie giving him a small glare. "If you'll allow me, it's impossible to travel through time and change the past without the Grail. Seriously. You'll likely run into intel regarding the Grail during your investigation of the Singularity. Even if you correct history, if you leave the Grail, it'll put us right back to square one. So you have to secure the Grail, or destroy it."

"Well then, those are your two objectives. Are we clear?" Marie said, getting nods from all present.

"There's one more thing I'd like to ask, but, it's nothing major. We can save it for after you Rayshift to that era." Romani said. "So Director, anything else?"

"Yes. From here on, you two and the Servants you bring with you into the Singularity will be divided into teams." Marie said, "Zvezda, you will lead Team A, for now consisting of you, Anastasia, Artoria, and Lily. Fujimura, you're leading Team B, you, Mash, and Cu Chullain."

"Sounds good to me!" Ritsuka said, chuckling.

"For now we'll stick together, but if a situation demands it, we can likely cover more by splitting up… but that can depend." Eil said, folding his arms. "Anything else we should focus on once we arrive?"

"Yes." Romani said. "Once you arrive, your first priority should be to find a Leyline and set up a summoning circle so that we can send supplies to you. Ritsuka, Mash, you did this in Fuyuki, so it'll be the same process. I would also suggest making a base camp."

"Got it." Eil said, looking over when Anastasia tugged at his sleeve, "Something up?"

"If it's a base camp we need, then one of my Noble Phantasms can likely help. I have a powerful Territory Creation skill to go along with it." Anastasia said. "We'll be well defended if I do use it."

"Good to know." Romani said. "Now, while we _could_ likely make do as is, unlike Fuyuki, what with the force we have now, though it's only telepathic communication we can offer. A need for more supplies can only be filled with a summoning circle. Like before, once Mash sets up her Noble Phantasm, it will act as a catalyst and trigger the summoning circle. If you feel the need to summon more Servants to aid you in battle, then you can while in the Singularity."

"But, there are odds other Servants will have already been summoned there as well." Marie said. "I would suggest, if possible, to find allies among them. And if not, well, that answer is simple, is it not?"

"Yes." Mash answered. "Before all else, we'll establish a base camp. What we'll need is a place to relax, a structure with a roof, a home to come back to, right, Master?"

"Just call me Ritsuka. And yes, that would be nice." Ritsuka said.

"Again, I can easily help with that." Anastasia remarked, peering out from Eil's side.

"Especially since we don't know how long we'll be in the Singularity." Artoria pointed out. "Having our own base of operations will be a boon, especially if we can keep it well defended."

"I'm not super good on the whole territory thing, but, I'm pretty good with runes." Cu added. "I have a rather good defensive one at hand, so don't worry about that."

"I'll do my best!" Lily said, determination in her voice.

"Alright!" Ritsuka cheered, jumping a bit. "Let's go, Mash, I'll be relying on you, okay?"

"H-Hearing you say that, really means a lot to me." Mash said. "I know I'm still an inexperienced Servant, but you can count on me, I'll be giving it my all!"

"Kyuu!" Fou said, popping up from Eil's hood.

"Well, sounds like everybody is nice and fired up." Eil mused.

"Umhm. To see Mash, who's serious, quiet, and frankly, kind of mysterious, grow up to be such a fine lady…" Romani said, Eil giving a chuckle.

"If Da Vinci wasn't in her workshop I'd bet she'd say something like "get over yourself." Or, you know." Eil said.

"Enough dawdling around. Zvezda, Fujimaru, we don't have time. We're going to prep for an immediate Rayshift." Marie said.

"Got it. Ready to go any time." Eil responded.

"I'm a-okay! You can count on me!" Ritsuka answered.

"Alright. We have coffins ready for you. So you two should be able to Rayshift quickly and safely. Your Servants will come with you during the shift." Romani said, a press of a button raising two of the cylindrical pillars from nearby. "We've detected seven Singularities, but we selected the time period with the smallest fluctuations. Once you two are there, we'll only be able to communicate with you. I know I'm repeating points, but your first goal should be to find a leyline and set up a base camp. After you've settled into the era, do what you need to do. So… good luck, Eil, Ritsuka."

"Yeah yeah. Let's get going." Eil said, already stepping over to one of the coffins.

With a smooth sound a bit of steam, the pillar opened, Eil turning around and hopping in, spotting Ritsuka getting into her own out of the corner of his eye. The door then slid up, and Eil let out a breath.

" _Unsummon Program start. Spiritron Conversion start. Rayshift starting in 3, 2, 1… All procedures cleared. Grand Order commencing operation."_

Eil's vision was then filled with a spark of blue, the world around him beginning to swirl around and around, until his entire vision flashed white.

"This is where it starts… our journey starts now."

 _ **First Singularity  
Hundred Years' War of the Evil Dragons: Orleans**_

* * *

 **A/N**

 **And so it begins! Hopefully I can streamline things so that it won't be like the Singularities take up massive amounts of chapters to get through. Just gonna have to reference the cutscenes in game, hehe. But oh will it be enjoyable with the twists I can add. Alrighty then, see ya' next chapter!**


	5. Chapter 4: Start of Singularity 1

Fate/Grand Order Alternative

 **Chapter 4: Land of the Hundred Years War**

Eil blinked repeatedly to adjust his eyes after the flash. When his vision cleared enough to see properly, the location became clear. A hilltop looking over vast plains of green and sparse trees was where the group had appeared. And just off in the distance, he could vaguely make out the silhouette of a town.

"Whoa, were are we?" Ritsuka looked around with a hand shading her eyes, Eil giving a hum.

"No clue right now… but guessing from the Mystic Code designs Da Vinci made, my guess would have to be somewhere in the mid-early 15th century."

"At least we made it safely." Mash spoke up, Eil looking the girl over, taking in the details of her armor… or was it really armor? All he knew was it was… questionably erotic in taste. Though the notable detail was the shield, the same one from the summoning room. "The last time Senpai and I did this, it was by accident. This time, it's a proper teleport via the Coffin with no physical anomalies."

"That's some pretty nifty stuff you have there." Cu said, using his staff as an arm rest.

"Fou! Fou! Fou!" Fou popped out from his spot in Eil's hood, the white haired boy scratching the creature on his chin.

"The little guy decided to tag along. He jumped into my hood a while ago." Eil said. "He should be sent back safely since he was with me, right?"

"There shouldn't be a problem." Mash added, then a beep went off, Mash looking at her wrist device. "Ah, it's done. I've confirmed the time axis coordinates. Looks like it's the year 1431."

"So looks like I wasn't that far off." Eil remarked, then he looked back when Anastasia tugged on his sleeve.

"If it's 1431, then wouldn't that mean we've arrived during the Hundred Years' War?" Anastasia said, Eil nodding as he put a hand on his chin.

"Yeah… but, if memory serves, this was during the respite period. Hopefully it won't be too bad… we'll just need to be cautious."

"Wait, wars get time off?" Ritsuka said, raising a hand.

"Well, despite what the name implies, the Hundred Years' War wasn't actually fought for the full 100 years the name implies." Mash clarified, Ritsuka giving a hum. "The war during this era was pretty carefree, relatively speaking."

"A carefree war? That's something." Anastasia remarked.

"War-time is no time to be taking things easily." Artoria said, folding her arms. "You should get the fighting done and… Master, what is it you're looking at?"

"Look up at the sky." Eil pointing upwards, the full party turning their attention skyward… and that was when the line buzzed, a holographic image of Marie and Romani appearing from Eil's wrist band as he held it up.

" _Yes, we connected! Not the best quality, but I've got video feed now too!"_ Romani said.

" _About time."_ Marie muttered. _"Hey, what's up with all of you? Why are you staring off into the sky?"_

"Doctor, Director, I'll send you visuals. What _is_ that?" Mash tapped her wrist device, looking back up, Romani and Marie then sharply gasping as they too saw the same ring of light that the others were stuck staring at.

" _A ring of light… no, some form of magecraft cast over the satellite orbit?"_ Romani observed, a thoughtful hum coming from the man. " _In any case, it's gigantic. At worst, it's as big as North America? Hmm… no records show such phenomena occurring in 1431."_

" _Then it must be one of the reasons behind out future disappearing. Romani, begin analyzing it."_ Marie's command got a nod from the doctor, who vanished from view shortly after. _"Fujimaru, Zvezda, concentrate on your on-site surveillance. Focus on finding leylines."_

"Well that's a laundry list… hopefully we can find someone in this era to help us, explore around, set up the summoning circle in a base camp… geez we're gonna be busy." Eil muttered, listing off things on his fingers. "Hey, Marie, can you guys find out if there's any time dilation between the singularity and Chaldea?"

" _We can try. For now, just handle your objectives. We'll be in touch again soon."_ With that, the line cut off, and Eil sighed.

"Alright then…" Eil then looked back at the Servants, giving a hum. "Considering the time period, let's keep the group together for now. We don't know the situation, and with no base camp, there's no reason for us to split up, so let's head for a town."

* * *

"Are we gonna have to do all of this walking the entire time?!" Ritsuka complained, Eil smacking her on the back to make the red-head pick up the pace.

"We don't have much of a choice… huh, that's actually a fort, not a town." Eil hummed as their approach had them draw closer and closer to the location, then he faltered back a bit, his pace coming closer to Artoria and Lily. "So, guessing we're in France from the coordinates, what do you two think about this?"

"Well… I don't really think I'd feel much about this." Lily said. "I mean, I'm excited that I get to travel at the least!"

"I myself don't hold any ill will towards the French. After all, one of my best knights was a Frenchman." Artoria said, Eil giving a hum.

"Right, Sir Lancelot." Eil hummed, then he put an arm up, everyone stopping. "I see people coming… huh, looks like a bunch of soldiers."

"Ehh? Should we get ready for a fight then?" Ritsuka's words got the Servants to already start readying weapons, but Eil put up an arm again, waving them down.

"No. They're normal humans from this era. We'd do best to save energy for _real_ fights, no point wasting energy fighting people who don't have to be our enemies, right?" Eil's statement got silent nods in return. With a nod of his own, Eil moved ahead, approaching the group of soldiers. Upon closer look, the men looked ragged and exhausted, their armor torn up and burnt… why would they be out here in a state like that? " _Excusez-moi, messiuers!_ My companions and I are travelers, and we're trying to find a place to rest for a bit. Is there anywhere nearby?"

Despite looking rather uneasy, probably due to the rather large group the soldiers say before them, one of them nodded to Eil. Seemed his greeting worked, but, perhaps the men were also just too exhausted to want to even try and fight anyone.

"There isn't a town around here for quite a while but, the fort we came form is just down the road… not that it'll be much." The soldier said, Mash stepping up.

"If you could, we'd be happy to head there for now… are the roads, dangerous by chance?" Mash's words seemed to confuse the soldiers.

"Are they? You lot clearly haven't been here long then." The lead soldier spoke again. "These roads are teaming with danger now but… well, just follow us."

" _Merci."_ Eil answered, waving to the others.

As the group began to make their way to the fort, following the soldiers, Ritsuka trotted up to the lead, matching pace with Eil.

"You can speak French?" Ritsuka said, Eil nodding. "Is it common for Magi to know other languages? And if so, how many can you speak?"

"Of course it is. Magi do a lot of traveling, so knowing how to speak a language is key." Eil answered, then he hummed. "Now let's see… I can speak Russian, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Latin, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Egyptian."

"That's like… ten languages?!" Ritsuka yelped, "Holy crap!"

"Well at the least, those are the ones I can speak fluently." Eil added, Ritsuka yelping again.

"So I take it that means we should just leave the talking to you, eh kid?" Cu remarked, Eil giving a chuckle.

"I guess."

When they did finally reach the fort, some things became very obvious. Despite the fact the fort looked to be in good condition, the interior of the place was in absolute shambles. And not to mention, all of the soldiers within looked worn out an exhausted, just like the ones who had guided the Chaldea groups there.

Which, considering the time period and what _should_ have been going on, was odd. These men looked like they had been in battle recently, and not to mention, like they had had the tar beaten out of them.

"Weird. For a time when the war should be slowing down, these guys look pretty roughed up." Cu noted, scanning around at the groaning, injured men.

"Perhaps it has to do with the singularity." Artoria noted. "Shielder, what _should_ have happened around this time?"

"Let me remember…" Mash murmured a bit, then turning to face the others. "During this period, Charles VII of France entered a peace treaty with Philip III, an ally of England. Of course, I'm sure there were some skirmishes."

"Hmm, perhaps the reason the singularity formed was this peace treaty not being signed then?" Artoria said, "But, there's many things that could be the cause."

"Well, then let's see what the case is." Eil said, turning to the soldier who'd guided them, clearing his throat. " _Excusez-moi,_ but, wasn't Charles VII signing a peace treaty?"

"King Charles? So, word didn't reach where you're from did it?" The soldier responded, Eil shaking his head. "The king is dead. He was burned by a witch's fire."

"Dead? And burned by a witch? Who would've done that?" Ritsuka said, the soldier giving a shudder.

"It's Jeanne d'Arc. She has risen again as the "Dragon Witch." England retreated quite a while ago. But where have we to run off to?" The soldier's voice filled with dread as he spoke, and one could see the shaking even under his armor. "This is our home, but, there's nothing we can do."

"Wait a minute, Jeanne d'Arc, a witch? What are you on about? Wasn't she burned at the stake recently?" Eil, who knew his history well enough, knew that around this time that event as rather recent.

"I'm kinda lost." Ritsuka said.

"Saint Jeanne d'Arc, the savior. She's a world-renowned hero." Mash said. "A woman who stood up to save France from being conquered during the late stages of the Hundred Years' War. She saved France at age 17, and managed to reclaim Orelans in just one year… but, she was caught by the English army, and after an inquisition, burned at the stake. They say that from the time of her imprisonment to her burning, she endured gruesome torture and humiliation daily. England wanted to prove that she was not a saint, but a heretic. So they tried to torture her into saying "I did not hear the Lord's voice." However, her heart remained true, and even while she was burning, she held onto her prayers."

"Eesh, pretty harsh punishment for a 17-year-old girl wouldn't ya say?" Cu remarked, and Eil caught Artoria and Lily flinch a bit at hearing it was their fellow Englishmen who'd carried out such an act.

"It took till 400 years after the fact for her to be recognized as a real saint." Eil remarked, "Not that I put much stock in things like God… divinity and the gods left mankind long before even this time."

"People like putting a lot of stock in things they can make lots of random claims about huh?" Ritsuka said, earning her looks. "What? I'm Japanese, so I follow Shinto! Besides that's less a religion and more a set of guidelines."

"Either way, thanks to the impact she had, Jeanne d'Arc is definitely a top ranked Heroic Spirit." Eil said, then looking to his wrist band as it started beeping, not to mention the soldiers suddenly starting to rally. "Director? What's with the alert?"

" _There's magical signatures heading your way."_ Marie said, Ritsuka leaning in. _"Familiars made with human bodies… skeleton soldiers."_

"EH?! Mash and I fought those things in Fuyuki!" Ritsuka shot over to the gate, the Servants already lining up. Eil stood next to Ritsuka, and a glow came to his eyes as he focused, his vision itself zooming, and he could see the shambling skeletons already breaking over the horizon.

"Just some dumb skeletons huh? This'll be easy… and they're not living people, so no need to hold back now is there?" Eil said, flexing his right wrist. "But, let's not waste energy now everyone. It's just skeletons, take 'em down fast, but do it efficiently!"

"What Eil said!" Ritsuka shouted, throwing an arm forward.

"Though I'm not just gonna sit around either." Eil said, lifting his right hand. "Connect!"

From a flash of blue, a silver sword formed from Eil's palm and into his grip, a swipe of it bringing it level, looking over when Cu stepped forward and pat his arm.

"Ah now hold on there. You said we shouldn't waste too much power right?" Cu said, spinning his staff into a forward hold. "Some flimsy skeletons are hardly worth even drawing your blades on wouldn't you say?"

"What's your idea?" Ritsuka said, Cu simply chuckling, a hand already moving through the air.

Everyone stepped back as runes began to be drawn in the air, the skeletons drawing closer by the seconds. Once the crowd of the skeleton soldiers was in direct view, Cu only smirked even as the terrified soldiers behind him began readying weapons.

With a wave of his hand, the runes Cu had drawn burst into flames and washed over the skeletons as they came close. Most of them, simply enough, collapsed into ashes as their charge broke. A few however, now on fire rather than in a "normal" state, _did_ break through, only to be swiftly cut down by Artoria and Lily, the Sabers dashing out to clear the stragglers as Cu's flames faded.

"Whoa that was fast." Ritsuka said, awe in her tone as the three Servants turned the two Masters.

"So that's what practiced Servants can do." Mash said, looking around at what was left of the skeletons, and the soldiers were in awe at what they had seen happen before them. "Well done however.

"I can't believe you took them on, and so easily!" The same soldier from before had spoken, and Eil chuckled.

"Well we're kind of used to these things." Eil said, ignoring it when Ritsuka ribbed him with her elbow. "Either way, before that, where were we? Something about Jeanne d'Arc being resurrected right?"

"Yes. I took part in the siege of Orleans and the ceremony, so I remember it well." The soldier replied, the Chaldea team again listening closely. "Her hair and skin color are different, as well as her eyes, but there's no question that she's the saint from the past. Hearing that she'd been captured by the English and burnt at the stake, we trembled in fury. But – she was resurrected. And through a pact with the Devil no less!"

"What do you mean by "the devil?" You can't possibly mean those dumb skeletons." Anastasia said, toying with her doll as she spoke, her tone towards the soldier rather cold.

"Not those. We can, at the least, handle those ourselves." The soldier replied. Odds were the man was used to imperious types.

"Wait… didn't he call her a "Dragon Witch" or something?" Ritsuka said. And as if answering the girl's question, a series of roars suddenly filled the air. "What was that?"

"Dammit, just as I thought, here they come!" The soldier turned to his fellows as he shouted, "Come and stand up! Dragons are here! If you don't resist, they'll eat you!"

" _Large creatures are near you, they're moving in fast!"_ Romani's voice suddenly broke the line, Eil turning and looking upwards.

"Well… they're not dragons _per say…_ more like wyverns." Eil said, and he could count at least five of them… then it finally crossed his mind. "What the hell are wyverns doing in the fifteenth century?!"

"I agree, they are definitely a creature that shouldn't be in 15th century France!" Mash said, Eil nodding.

"Yeah. Alright, change of plans if that's the case, don't hold back! Phantasmal Beasts are different than flimsy bones!" Eil shouted, Ritsuka throwing a fist up.

"Full force, full charge!" Ritsuka shouted… then another voice sounded.

"Soldiers, douse yourself with water! You can momentarily defend against their flames!" A girl suddenly appeared on the field, varying an unfurled banner attached to a long spear, a long braid of blonde hair moving as she dashed in front of the soldiers and the Chaldea team, then she turned to the lead soldier, the man looking incredibly confused. "You there, please pick up a weapon and fight! Together with me! Follow me!"

"What the… that girl's a Servant!" Eil said.

" _Eil is right!"_ Romani was on the line again, _"But her energy is weak, what is she…"_

"Doesn't matter, just go! Artoria, Lily, to the front!" Eil shouted, throwing an arm forward, the Sabers wordlessly nodding before joining the flag-bearing girl at the front as the wyverns landed. Eil then turned to Anastasia, the white-haired girl looking at the wyverns. "Anastasia?"

"Relax. I wonder how wyverns will stand the cold winter?" Anastasia fiddled with her doll a bit as she began to step forward, and in the back, Ritsuka was looking between Mash and Cu.

"Right, can't stand by… Mash, help defend the soldiers, your should be able to help keep them safe!" Ritsuka said, Mash nodding, the girl then turning to Cu. "Cu, do you have something for this?"

"Fire tends to be my specialty, doubt it'll do much against wyverns." Cu then also looked at his staff, "Ah man, now I kinda wish I was summoned as a Lancer instead. If only I had my spear… hmm, well, hmm, their underbellies should be soft enough in the right spot!"

"Then do that!" Ritsuka said.

With those orders in mind, the fighting started. Artoria and Lily struck past the Wyvern's attempts to claw at them as the beasts also split flames, their swords cutting cleanly through the scales on the beast's legs, Artoria shooting upwards, her blade driving through the wyvern's snout and through it's head. Lily shot back from a gout of fire, Cu shooting forward from the fire and slamming the wyvern in the gullet with the lower end of his staff, the scales cracking under the blow.

"Take the chance shorty!" Cu yelled, Lily nodding and swiping her blade as the wyvern lurched down, a clean cut coming across its neck, the beast dropping to the ground, the Servants shooting back as another wyvern let out flames at them.

Back at the lines of the fighting soldiers, Mash had raised her shield against one swooping for the men. With a loud clang as the beast's talons slammed into her shield, Mash yelled as she pushed back, slamming the wyvern and sending it careening off… careening right towards Anastasia.

"Look out!" Mash yelled, Anastasia turning as the wyvern tried to fly again while continuing to sail towards her.

"Viy." Was all the pale haired girl said as he lifted her right hand at the wyvern. Once it was close, a massive amount of ice burst from Anastasia's hand, freezing the wyvern solid within multiple massive spikes of the cold substance, and the grass itself was now freezing under the girl's feet. "Shatter."

And with a cold snap of her fingers, the ice shattered, leaving nothing of the wyvern but some frosted scales and a fang or two. What followed this was stunned silence on the part of everybody else for a brief few moments, at least until the remaining two wyverns let out jets of flame.

"Don't stop fighting just yet!" The flag-bearing Servant said, wheeling around and driving her spear through the chest of one of the wyverns, Artoria finishing it off with a stab of her own, the wind around her blade blowing the beasts body wide open.

"Casters!" Lily dived back from another Wyvern as it spewed flames at her, her blade leaving it's marks during her retreat, Mash moving to black the fire with her shield. In answer to the shout, Anastasia and Cu lifted a hand each, the remaining wyvern being blasted by chunks of ice and flames, the beast falling to the ground. Eil made a point to walk over to the thing as it was left gurgling, and when it screeched at him, he shoved the sword in his hand through its eye, silencing the creature.

"And that's that." Eil pulled the sword from the wyvern's skull, a _schlick_ sounding as he did so, and he dissipated the sword with a flick of his wrist. "Everyone in top form? Ritsuka, you in particular?"

"I'm good!" Ritsuka popped back into view from having been poking at one of the dead wyverns, then turning to look at the Servants. "How about all of you?"

"Everyone seems to be in good condition." Mash stated, the other Servants nodding in response. And as had been expected, a beep came from Eil and Ritsuka's wrist bands.

" _All right, fine job everyone! The director and I were watching. Geez, talk about sweaty palms and feet!"_ Romani said, and one could hear the exasperation in Marie's voice.

" _Romani, please go back to your analyzation. Leave me to do navigation for now."_

" _Yes ma'am!"_

" _Back to things."_ One could hear Romani scurrying off. _"With that done, talk to that Servant will you?"_

"Was about to… but…" Eil turned back around, and the soldiers were suddenly looking at the flag-bearer with fear in their eyes.

"Impossible, you're – No, no way! Run! The witch is here!" One soldier's shout got all of the others to run from the field and retreat back into the fort. That left only the Chaldea team and the Servant girl left.

"What was that about?" Ritsuka said, folding her arms. "That was pretty rude, especially after she helped them!"

A brief silence followed that, eyes then turning to the flag-bearer.

"Um… thank you." The girl said after a moment.

"That was nothing." Mash said. "Though, if you could give us your name…"

"Ruler. My Servant Class is Ruler." The blonde girl answered. "My True Name is Jeanne d'Arc."

"Eh? Ehhh? Wait, didn't those soldiers say she was like… attacking them or something?" Ritsuka said, Eil waving her down.

"This one is different, I can bet." Eil said, Jeanne looking at him. "I could tell with a look. A Ruler wouldn't go around terrorizing people, much less in their home country, especially with wyverns of all bloody things. You're a Servant summoned directly into this battle by the Grail, aren't you?"

"We'll talk about that later. It's nothing we should speak of in front of these people." Jeanne said, looking back to the fort, flinching a bit when the gates shut hard. "But, you're correct about me, good sir. But please, let's go elsewhere. If you all would please follow me."

"S-Should we go with her?" Ritsuka said, Eil giving a hum. "It's like a clue isn't it? A clue to what's really going on here!"

"That's one way to put it. Besides, I'd trust a Ruler any day." Eil said, Fou popping out from his place in the hood.

"Kyuu, kyuu kyuu!" Fou chirped.

" _Good move."_ Marie said, _"She may be weakened, but she is a Servant… she could also be the clue we need to find out what's going on here, as she's no doubt far more aware of things than we are. None of the other Servants object?"_

"Not at all." Artoria and Lily answered in tandem.

"Whatever my Master says." Cu said.

"I don't really care." Anastasia answered.

" _Good enough for me."_ Marie said, but with an exasperated sigh to her voice.

"Alright then, let's go!" Eil said.

* * *

The movements of the group had brought them quite a ways out from the fort, all the way into the nearby woods, and not to mention, rather deep into it. Once the entourage had reached a good enough clearing within the thicket, that was when Jeanne finally stopped.

"Alright, I think we can settle down here." Jeanne looked around at the group as they all promptly took seats on the various large roots, Ritsuka giving a long sigh.

"Man walking is so tiring! I could handle it back home, but through the woods? I nearly sprained my leg back there!" Ritsuka's whining earned her a light tap on the head courtesy of Eil. "Ow!"

"I barely hit you." Eil muttered, Ritsuka lightly punching his arm in return.

"Well, first, could you all please tell me your names?" Jeanne asked, Eil, Ritsuka, and Mash nodding.

"Of course. My individual name is Mash Kyrielight. This here is my Master, Ritsuka."

"Hey there! I'm one of the two Masters here along with this guy. I have another Servant too, Cu over there, the guy with the staff. He's a Caster."

"Yo." Cu responded.

"Eilwyn Zima la Zvezda is the name." Eil answered, then gesturing to his Servants. "And these three are my Servants. Artoria, Lily, and Anastasia. Saber for the former two, and Caster for the last."

"It's an honor to meet you, Jeanne d'Arc." Artoria formally answered, Lily taking a bow.

"T-the same for me!" Lily answered. Anastasia just gave a small wave, not even choosing to speak.

"Masters? So, there are Masters, even in this Holy Grail War." Jeanne said, Ritsuka and Eil both lifting a brow. "As I said before, Eilwyn is correct about my state as a Servant. I was summoned directly into this War, without a Master… but the same is true for every other Servant present here as well."

"Well, it has nothing to do with the Holy Grail War. I'm just a Demi-Servant, and the others were summoned by other means." Mash answered.

"Demi-Servant?" Jeanne said, reasonably so.

"I'm not a true Heroic Spirit. Have you heard of us?" Mash said, Jeanne giving a hum.

"…Right, we should probably clear that up first." Jeanne said. "I am indeed a Servant, my Class is Ruler. I understand that. But… a majority of the information that should be provided about the Grail War is missing."

"Huh?" Ritsuka murmured, Eil clearing his throat.

"Ruler is one of those special Classes I mention." He said, Ritsuka humming. "Rulers are basically kind of like overseers, special Servants who have special authority within a Grail War, and special abilities that come with that station. Normally, a Ruler is a Servant with no proper wish for the Grail, and thus, no reason to desire to battle for it. So, Jeanne, what kind of information is missing for you?"

"It's not just information, actually. Even my parameters have ranked down. Not only have I lost the anti-Servant Command Spells, I can't even reveal their true names anymore. Luckily, this is my homeland where I was born and raised. If nothing else, at least I speak the language…"

"Right, I thought something was odd… your parameters are far too low for a Ruler." Eil said, confused looks being aimed at him. "Riiight, should maybe explain that. Well, see, I inherited a Mystic Eye from my mother, and its key ability is _Identification._ I can read the parameters of other magi, divine beasts, and particularly, Servants. Any kind of magical information, if it's to be found, I can discover it with a mere look."

"That's pretty nifty." Cu remarked, Eil chuckling.

"Heck yeah it is." Eil said, then clearing his throat again. "But, not to dampen things, but, that soldier back there told us that Jeanne d'Arc had become "The Dragon Witch." I don't have any doubt you're _not_ that Jeanne d'Arc, but, you'd understand why we'd at least be a little suspicious, if not just plain confused."

"Honestly speaking, I only materialized a few hours ago. I know as much about what's going on here as you do." Jeanne said, and one could hear a sudden _thunk_ from the other end of the communication line. "It seems there is another Jeanne d'Arc in this world. A Jeanne that murdered King Charles the VII, and committed the slaughter at Orleans…"

"Wait so… does that mean two of the same Servant have been summoned into the same era?" Mash said, Eil looking at Artoria and Lily.

"Maybe it's a situation like Artoria and Lily. This other Jeanne may be an alternate… but, I can't imagine there being any kind of alternate Servant of Jeanne in the Throne of Heroes. Your station as a saint is pretty solidly set in history, not much else." Eil added, then humming. "But, now we know two things for certain. Charles the VII is dead, and Orleans has been occupied. That symbolizes the collapse of the nation of France itself… perhaps that was the key to forming this Singularity."

" _France was the first nation to declare human rights and equality. Many nations followed suit after it."_ Marie spoke up, though there was this layer of exasperation to her voice. _"Delaying something like that by 100 years would stagnate civilization, harshly. Without progress like that, we'd likely have remained stuck in the Middle Ages."_

"I just heard a voice." Jeanne said, looking a bit shocked. "Is that magecraft?! What in the world are you all?"

"Right, we should explain that as well." Eil said, giving a chuckle, while he heard Marie give a heavy sigh. "Let me reintroduce ourselves a bit. Ritsuka and I are the Masters of the Chaldea Security Organization."

" _Allow me, Zvezda."_ Marie said, clearing her throat, Eil lifting his arm band so the holographic image could be projected, Jeanne flinching as the image of the director appearing in front of her. _"It's an honor to meet you, Saint Jeanne d'Arc. I am the director of Chaldea, Olga Marie Animusphere."_

" _And I'm the local doctor."_ Romani said, appearing in the frame, too Marie's clear consternation. _"I'm Romani Archiman, though everyone calls me Roman. I handle various tasks, but mostly I do medical work and analysis. Nice to meet you!"_

"Ah, I see, Roman. You tend to be a dreamer!" Jeanne's remark was wholly innocent and genuine, hell it was a compliment even… yet Romani looked entirely defeated.

"… _What is this sense of defeat? She complimented me, but I'm not happy at all…"_

" _Please continue working! We need that analysis done!"_ Marie shoved Romani out of the frame, then cleared her throat. _"Forgive that. Allow me to explain why we're here. Our objective is to correct this twisted form of history. Chaldeas' objective is rather simple… but, you'll need to know the state of things…"_

* * *

A short while later, and Jeanne had been fully briefed on the situation outside of the singularity, and the reason for the Chaldea team's presence in this current time. Not to mention, how they'd done it and why it was Eil and Ritsuka could have multiple Servants without killing themselves from the mana usage.

"I understand now." Jeanne said, giving a sad sigh as she leaned back where she was seated. "To think that the world itself has been incinerated. My worries were so trivial, but now I… I'm an incomplete Servant, and even I cannot trust "myself." The Jeanne d'Arc that occupied Orelans… Not only that, but those flying dragons…"

"Wyverns. Close cousin yes, but they're not real dragons." Eil corrected, clearing his throat from the sudden cut in.

"There's no way those existed in 15th century France." Mash said, "More importantly, he called you a "Dragon Witch." There's not many other answers…"

"Yes, the person controlling those wyverns has to be "myself." I have no idea how she's controlling them though. I never thought about such things in life. Summoning dragons, or wyverns, has to be one of the highest forms of magecraft. Least of all this many… the skies are downright flocking with them."

" _It's impossible for modern mages."_ Romani cut in again. _"It'd be incredibly difficult even for this era's magicians. Ritsuka, Eil, that means there's only one answer. Not many things could bend the rules like this, don't you agree?"_

"Yeah, the Holy Grail." Eil said, giving a long sigh.

"That's just troublesome, isn't it?" Ritsuka said, then tapping a closed hand to her other's palm. "But, if that is the case, it's no longer someone else's problem! That's our other job, to find the Holy Grail!"

"There's a lot of unclear points, but I have an idea of things now." Mash said.

"Right. Well than, Ruler, what are you going to do from here?" Artoria spoke up, placing her hands on the pommel of her still hidden sword.

"The objective is clear." Jeanne answered, her voice firm. "I must return to Orleans and reclaim it. To do that, I must exterminate the Jeanne d'Arc who stands in my way. The Lord didn't show me the path, but I cannot turn my back on this."

"Even alone, you will fight… she's just like history says, Master, Eil." Mash said… then she got her cheek tugged by Ritsuka.

"You call him Eil but don't use my first name? Come on Mash, that's not fair, what do I gotta do to get you to use my first name?!" Ritsuka's whining was downright comedic, enough to earn snickers from a few present, even the relatively taciturn Anastasia.

"P-Please stop." Mash murmured, Ritsuka releasing her, Mash then rubbing her cheek. "But, Director, Doctor, I think it's clear. Our objective and Jeanne's are the same, wouldn't you say? I was thinking about our next objective… how about we help her?"

"I ain't against it. The more help we have, the better, especially when we don't have much of an idea of what's coming next. Marie?" Eil lifted his wrist again, bringing the holographic image back up.

" _I agree. The best course of action is to assist Jeanne. We may have our own objective, but we'll be of aid to you in order to meet those goals."_ Marie said, then she chuckled. _"And it's not every day one gets to say they fought under the banner of Jeanne d'Arc herself."_

"Oh look, even the uptight director can get psyched about things." Eil's remark got Marie to look flustered a bit, even as she glared at him.

" _Admittedly, with the situation as it is, I just want something to go_ right _at the moment."_ Marie admitted.

"That aside, you good with our ragtag bunch of misfits?" Eil said, Jeanne giving a grin.

"Oh… The honor will be all mine. I cannot thank all of you enough. Thank you, Eilwyn, Ritsuka, Mash. I thought I would be alone in this fight." Jeanne said, Eil snickering.

"Alright! So, how about this? You contract as a Servant with me or Ritsuka. In that case, it should help even out your stats a bit." Eil suggested, Ritsuka then slapping him on the back.

"Eil is the better magus, so contract with him. I can barely handle a normal contract with even a Caster as I am now." Ritsuka said, Eil looking back to her.

"I can start helping you out with that y'know?" Eil said, Ritsuka's eyes lighting up.

"Really?! You'd teach me about magic?!"

"Well not like I don't have a reason to. No point leaving you ignorant during all of this right?" Eil said, Ritsuka getting giddy as she fidgeted about. "Either way, that's where we are… now, what to do next? It's getting rather late."

"Agreed." Jeanne said, looking thoughtful for a moment. "Admittedly, with what I was hearing, I was worried the British would be riled up. But that doesn't seem to be the case, things are going smoothly. The truth is, it's only been a few days since I was burned at the stake, so if a "me" suddenly appeared and caused a massacre, I don't blame people for being scared of me."

"It still must feel bad though." Ritsuka said.

"I know I'd feel cross if I returned to my era, only to find my people scorning my name." Artoria noted, Lily giving a hum of her own. Anastasia looked to the side as this was said, twisting a bit of her hair as she quietly muttered, the air dropping a bit in temperature as a result.

"I will admit it does, but, I cannot worry about that." Jeanne said. "Our objective is to find the Jeanne who they are calling a witch, and defeat her. But for now, we should scout around first. The goal is simple, but reaching it, not so much."

"Heh, as expected of Jeanne d'Arc, she's an expert in tactics and war. Well Artoria? What's your input?" Eil said, Artoria nodding.

"I agree with Ruler. We shouldn't hurry to our goals. It does us no good to charge headlong into danger, especially when we don't know the full capability of the enemy forces. The odds are those wyverns are just the beginning, and we don't know anything of any enemy Servants either. So a direct assault on Orleans is an ill-advised strategy." Artoria said, Eil humming.

"And as expected of King Arthur, also an expert at war." Eil said. "So, that's where we are…"

"Let's gather some intel! But… maybe we should set up a home base first. It doesn't help us if we stay out in the open all the time, right?" Ritsuka said, all eyes on her. "What? I play strategy games sometimes!"

" _I agree with Fujimaru."_ Marie said. _"While I'm sure Romani would love to get information on this… let's call her Dark Jeanne for now, and we could do with more allies, a base camp is a priority. Romani, is there a leyline nearby?"_

" _Hmm, let me check…"_ Romani's hum then became a near shocked sound, _"Holy… wow I did not expect this! I think it has to do with the state of the Singularity, but, you guys are right on top of one… and there's a whole web of them too… I mean it makes sense. The Singularity only goes so far, so it's reasonable to say that any leylines in the area would get stronger and branch out as a result of it."_

" _Well, you two heard him. Use this location to set up a base camp, and then we can begin for real."_ Marie said, _"Now as for how to do that…"_

"If you could allow me." Anastasia said, stepping forward. "I believe one of my Noble Phantasms can provide that easily."

"Well then by all means." Eil said, Anastasia chuckling. "We may all want to stand back…"

On those words, everyone immediately followed Eil's directions and retreated the tree line, far away from Anastasia. Once the girl had her back to the team, it was then that her shadow itself began to rise behind her, forming into a specter like being with shadowing arms that stretched outwards. Anastasia lifted a hand up, and the air itself began to grow cold as the ground beneath the girl and the shadow iced over slowly.

" **Sumerki Kremlin!"** With the call of that name, of all the things to happen in the middle of spring now, a blizzard kicked up in the area in front of Anastasia, the trees themselves beginning to vanish as a silhouette of a structure began to show within the torrent of snow and wind. Once it finally cleared, with a burst through the air, all that there was from the others was stunned silence, as now, where several plots of trees had been, stood a grand fortress, it's cold aura dominating the spring air. "Thank you, Viy."

"What… the… hell." Eil said, watching as the shadow around Anastasia faded, and he noticed how the girl looked particularly smug as she looked back at him. "Damn impressive though. I recognize this though… there's forts like this all over Russia!"

"Exactly. As I have the blood of emperors past in me, I have the ability to call such a fortress to defend myself." Anastasia explained. "Only those I permit entry can safely walk the halls of this fortress. Those I don't allow… well, let's say they'll have surprises waiting for them when they do."

"Scary."

"SO COOL!" Ritsuka yelled, immediately rushing forward, then she stopped dead once she was past the gate. "So cold!"

"Hehehe… she's a funny girl." Anastasia mused, Eil smirking as he caught the brief show of an amused grin on the cold girl's face. "What?"

"Nothing… you're just cute when you smile is all." Eil remarked, Anastasia whacking his arm, even as Eil snickered. "Still… this is quite the impressive start!"

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Ah I love it when things finally come together. I'm gonna be moving out a lot of the fluff the singularities tend to have. Hopefully it'll move things along at a faster pace… but my own pace for things is about to be shot hard since college is starting up for me in around a week. Tap that onto work and my free time is about to be minimized big time again. Whatever though, perseverance is one of my strong suits. As for how this is gonna go… well, I'll see what happens really. Heh… need to get going on America is what I need to do though.**


	6. Chapter 5

Fate/Grand Order Alternative

 **Chapter 5: First Encounter**

"And there, ritual complete… phew… yeah I'm feeling that already." Eil let out a sigh as he felt a sudden pull on him as the glow from his Command Spells finally died down, Jeanne standing straight up. The full party was now gathered in the war room of the fortress, and Jeanne forming a contract with Eil had been the first priority before the night was to end. "Ahhh… I knew contracting with a Ruler would be draining, but even in your weakened state I'm feeling that one."

"I do apologize for that, but, if it helps, I feel stronger already." Jeanne nodded as she closed a hand, looking up at the boy who was now her Master. "I know it's unorthodox for sure, but, thank you Master."

"No worries… now, maybe we should get some rest before anything else." Eil muttered, rolling a shoulder.

"I agree. Us Servants will be fine, but, you and Ritsuka are human, rest would do you well." Jeanne said.

"We can plan early in the morning before making our move. We may not know much but the best we can do is figure things out. Lady Anastasia, I assume this fortress has some kind of apparatus we can use for scouting?" Artoria said, Anastasia nodding as she fiddled with her doll.

"Of course. The armory should be fully stocked. There might be some binoculars in there that could be useful to us. We don't need the weapons anyway. Guns being toted around in this era would also just throw too many things out of whack." Anastasia added, then humming. "Well… more than already has been anyway."

"Sounds good to me! All that walking's worn me right out." Ritsuka added. "I hope the beds are soft!"

"Hmhm… this may be a military fort but I promise the accommodations will be welcoming." Anastasia said, Eil and Ritsuka nodding to her.

* * *

 _Five months ago…_

"Annnd there… eesh, I know she's on edge, but Marie is working me like a damn slave horse… y'd think she'd respect her dad's wishes to give me a bit more leeway bit I guess not!"

Eil flopped down onto the soft carpet of the library as he finished stowing away an entire cart full of books, then sitting back up and giving a sigh as he folded his arms over his chest. He'd only been in Chaldea for a month now, and despite things he'd basically been running around doing nothing but busywork… not like there _was_ much to do while other Master Candidates were being gathered and all. Though the top picks had already arrived not long after he did… as for how well Eil got along with most of them, well… that varied.

"Haaagh… good thing nobody here knows who I am… if they did it'd be a shit storm." Eil stretched his arms and stood up, nabbing a few books from other shelves he went through as he headed for one of the seating areas in the library. He spent a good deal of his time here, he'd basically made it a little getaway.

"Now which Servants to read up on this time… _Le Morte de Arthur?_ Nah, read it hundreds of times… _Codex Regias?_ Nope… Divine Spirits are a no go for me… historical records… hm? Things on the Romanovas huh… I think my great-granddad worked with them."

"Huh… thought I'd find you here. You're almost always under a pile of books."

Eil looked up from the records he was flipping through, coming eye to eye with a young man likely his age. The young man's skin was pale and his hair as well, both like snow, though heavy, notable bags were under tired looking grey eyes. Unlike how Eil was wearing MOST of the basic Chaldea Master uniform, this young man was in different clothes, which were primarily grey and black… all in all he fit the image of being sort of shifty, or at least someone who'd draw suspicion.

"Oh, hey there Kadoc. How was the Rayshift testing?" But, Eil's response was friendly. He actually liked Kadoc. Despite his tired, dreary looks Kadoc wasn't too bad a person, and the two of them were able to get along surprisingly easily.

"Exhausting as usual." Kadoc flopped down in another chair with a tired sigh, earning a chuckle from Eil was he flipped a page. "Thankfully these chairs are soft as hell."

"And now you know why I hang out here all the time." Eil mused. "Hmm… yeah, that's about right… the Romanovas passed down a familiar from heir to heir instead of magic crests. Viy huh? Neat name… isn't that from a story book?"

"Do you always think out loud?"

"Only when I'm reading."

"What are you even reading about?"

"I just kinda read whatever. I'm mostly doing research on Servants. Gotta have this stuff planned in advanced. Of course we've got the luck that Chaldea has an absurd amount of catalysts to use." Eil said, closing the book and replacing it with another. "I'm trying to pick one that'd be a good fit for me."

"Ah right. The Director mentioned that. Tch, I've got no idea what kind of Servant I should summon. I'm not like you or Wodime with those ridiculous mana reserves that can handle seemingly anything." Kadoc's tone was a bit bitter. Despite having been handpicked to be a master, the young man wasn't quite what one could call an exceptional magus at all. He just got lucky and had incredibly high compatibility with Servants was all.

"Hmm… I'd suggest a Caster for someone like you." Eil said, Kadoc looking at him with a raised brow. "Casters tend to be pretty self-sufficient. They've all universally got abilities like Territory Creation or Item Creation, with some variance here or there, and because they're Servant particular abilities they don't need to rely on mana from the Master to use them. What'd be an example I could use… hmm… ah, I know. Solomon ibn Gabirol…"

"You said that too easily."

"Lemme finish. Otherwise known as Avicebron. The man who basically created the Kabbalah school of Thaumaturgy and also a master of making Golems. As a Servant, a Master who can provide the proper resources wouldn't have to waste a bit of mana for that to work out. In short though, in general a Caster won't be much of a drain on you, so I think a Caster would suit you best… of course the problem is among all the Servant Classes, after maybe Saber, Caster has _way_ too many Servants in it. Spirits who don't tend to fit into other Classes have a weird habit of being slapped into Caster without a care. Did ya' know the Class is full of writers?"

"What."

"Yeup. Shakespeare, Hans Christensen Andersen, H.P Lovecraft might be in there… that's actually scary to think about."

"Huh… you know for some guy the old director apparently just picked up out of nowhere like me, you know way more about Servants than you'd think… I actually think you know the most about Servants out of anyone here." Kadoc said, Eil slapping his book shut and giving a chuckle. "Who _are_ you anyway huh Eil? I can't shake the feeling you're hiding something."

"Well, I guess you could say it's part of the family business. And aren't we all hiding something in the end?" Eil remarked, Kadoc just humming as he pulled a book off of the stack. "So, how about it? Wanna look through and see if I can help you pick out a Servant?"

"Ah what the hell. Better to ask you than one of the others."

* * *

"Okay so… summary of the knowledge we do have about the situation can be summed up pretty succulently as "jack fucking shit." All we know is this singularity's root likely has to do with this other Jeanne who can summon wyverns of all ruddy things, and that the pivotal event of this era hasn't come to pass because that Jeanne took over Orleans."

It was the next morning and the entire group had gathered up in the fortress's war room, Eil standing with his hands on the table, which _conveniently_ was a map of the current region, likely a quirk of the Noble Phantasm itself, while everybody else in the party was seated in the various chairs.

"As well as that this other "me's" existence is no doubt the cause for my weakened state." Jeanne said, Eil nodding in confirmation. "Our best bet would be to return to Orleans and face her, but, that sounds far more like an end goal than an immediate action."

"Our best course would be to survey the surrounding area." Artoria spoke up next, standing up and going next to Eil, pointing at different spots on the map. "There are plenty of towns that we can go to on the way to Orleans. If Ruler was already summoned here on her own, then the odds we can meet up and ally with other Servants is high. As Ruler said, Orleans is the end goal, not what we should go too immediately. We don't know what kind of forces will be waiting in store for us. Be it monsters or other Servants, we need to be prepared for anything."

"Spoken like a true warlord. You'd fit in pretty well in my era." Cu Chullain said, folding his arms as he gave an amused hum, and Artoria chuckled herself.

"I led my knights into many a battle, and I had a good teacher who instructed me on battle strategy. At the least I can assist with this much." Artoria said, a hint of pride to her voice, though she suddenly looked trouble when she saw how Lily was looking at her with awe. No doubt the younger version of this person thought her future self was incredible.

"So that at least has that settled." Eil said, a hand to his chin, then pulling his sleeve back and tapping his wrist band. "Director? Anything you wanna add? I know you're listening."

" _Of course I am."_ Marie's voice came over the line, a holographic projection of the girl appearing over the war table. _"It's as you all said. For now, gather information and try to find more allies. If luck is on our side perhaps we'll meet someone who knows more about this other Jeanne than we do."_

"Also, how's the analysis about any time dilation between the Singularity and Chaldea gone?" Eil asked, Mashu and Ritsuka leaning in next to him as he brought that up, while Romani popped into view as well.

" _I just finished it last night. There's no dilation between us and you guys. Time is passing here as it does there. Though I don't think we can expect it to be the same each time."_ Romani remarked, tapping at the tablet he was holding. _"Also as for that other Jeanne-perhaps we'll call her Dark Jeanne?-I'd like to learn more about her too, see if we can gather data on what kind of Servant she is. FATE is a more unique system, since it can record and draw on Heroes who wouldn't normally be able to manifest even under proper circumstances. With the right records from the singularities you two could potentially summon Servants never seen before! How's about that huh?"_

" _Not the time for this kind of speculation Romani."_ Marie said, the man moving back out of view. _"Anyway, we'll cut contact for now. Call again once you've gotten somewhere. Director out."_

"Alright, so that's that. Where should we go first?" Eil murmured, then Jeanne stepped up and pointed at the map. "La Charite?"

"It's the closest town from this forest after all." Jeanne remarked, folding her arms. "It's the best I say we can do for now. We need as much information about the state of Orleans as we can get, and for now we should avoid being close to Orleans as much as possible."

"Would also likely be a good idea you not show your face much." Anastasia added, finally speaking up after having not said a word. "I mean no offense by that, simply that, if the way those soldiers reacted is anything to go buy, then your presence could easily lead us to conflict we don't need."

"I can agree there." Jeanne admitted. "It may pain me but we must do as needed. Though I do worry about the state of some towns… with those wyverns about who knows what kind of destruction they've caused already? The other "me" cannot be in her right mind. Admittedly I feel rather panicked about this. Overwhelming power and hatred can easily destroy a person, no matter how noble they are."

"Well, no time to waste then, let's get moving!" Ritsuka declared, throwing a fist up as she gave a cheer.

* * *

"That is… not good."

"Eil don't look nonchalant about this!"

"It… the entire town is on fire." Mashu spoke aloud about what was happening, Fou on her head as the Masters stared on with the Servants.

It had been a few hours since the party concluded their strategy meeting. They had left the forest, with Anastasia conveniently revealing she could unsummon the fort as she pleased and would be able to call it up again when needed without issue, and made their way forward while continuing to discuss what to do next.

Only to find their destination, La Charite, up in flames. Buildings smoldering down to their frames, smoke billowing into the air that on the open grasslands it would no doubt be seen for miles all around. And while this was a horrible sight for all of them to see, there was no doubt Jeanne was the most immediately affected by this sudden development.

"Let's hurry!" Jeanne shot off immediately, nobody else even giving another thought before they rushed off after the Ruler-class Servant and into the town. It was nothing but flames as the party entered the burning streets, and aside from the crackling of the flames nothing could be heard at all. "It can't be!"

"Uhhh… this is reminding me of Fuyuki." Ritsuka murmured, rolling one of her wrists.

"This isn't a good sign. Roman, life signs!" Eil said, listening as the line crackled on.

" _It's no use! There's nothing alive in the town."_ Romani said, Eil clicking his tongue. And that was when something carried through the air, a series of noises… shuffling and groaning.

"That's not good." Eil muttered, a sword and spear flashing into form in his hands.

"It could be a survivor!" Jeanne said, already starting to move.

"Wait a minute, that's-" Mashu shouted, and as soon as something lunged for Jeanne, it was slammed away by a blast of fire, Cu lowering his staff, the Caster giving a click of the tongue.

"I wouldn't rush like that little lady. Like the doctor said, there ain't anything alive here." Cu stated, everyone immediately standing around in a circle as more figures rose out of the ruins, shuffling excuses for corpses, the burned remains of the villagers with no doubt.

"What are these things?" Anastasia muttered, a hand raised at the approaching foes. "Living dead? Is there a word for those…?"

"Zombies." Eil affirmed, the cold girl giving a hum in response. "It's just a bunch of shambling corpses. Put 'em down!"

On that order, aside from the less combat capable Ritsuka, the party lunged at the zombies as they came at them. Going by the size of the town this had to be quite the horde to deal with, and cutting through the things was going to be a slog. Only a few minutes in and the town was covered in corpses with severed body parts of several varieties, more flames than before, and ice spikes that jutted all around. But that still wasn't stopping them.

"And I thought the skeletons were persistent!" Ritsuka said, her head popping out from behind Mashu's shield. "How big _is_ this town?! There can't be that many can there?"

"We should go the first chance we get." Artoria said, though attention turned upwards when screeching came from above. "Though it seems like something more concerning has arrived. Wyverns!"

In lieu with that, at least five wyverns crashed down to the ground. And almost immediately, one of them snatched up one of the zombies, it's jaws turning the body into nothing but bloody chunks in an instant.

"That's just wrong… though I guess wyverns don't care what they eat." Eil grumbled, giving a groan at the sight. "But ya' know what, fuck it! Kill the things!"

* * *

And a short time later, the wyverns now all stood dead, and no new enemies showed any sign of arriving at all. As the Servants all stood down and Ritsuka took a seat on some rubble, Eil meanwhile, went over to one of the dead wyverns with a dagger in hand. He took the weapon as he pried open the mouth of one of the wyverns, starting to dig it into the gums of the creature and pry out its fangs.

"What are you doing that for?" Ritsuka asked, swinging her legs back and forth, Eil also tugging some scales off the creature as well.

"I can probably make use of 'em. Wyverns are a breed of phantasmal beasts, so that means pieces of them are useful for thaumaturgical processes." Eil said, Ritsuka tilting her head.

"Uhm..."

"Basically, I can use their fangs and scales for spells and the like."

"Oh."

Ritsuka just hummed as Eil continued building the pile of fangs and scales next to him, Anastasia stepping over and watching the process.

"Do we really need those?" Anastasia asked, Eil wiping his hands off from the blood that got on them.

"I believe in it being better to have something and not need it, than to need it and not have it." Eil remarked, a snap of his fingers causing the collected items to vanish.

And he immediately got a call on his communicator.

" _ZVEZDAAA!"_ Cue Marie shouting at the top of her lungs, Eil smirking. _"Why did a pile of fangs and scales just drop all over the Rayshift chamber?!"_

"Those're for Da Vinci. I plucked them from some of the wyverns we just fought, maybe she can use them for something."

" _What FOR?!"_

"I don't know! Maybe they can help her improve Saint Graphs or something. Doesn't the FATE system do that?"

" _It does yes, but it's a damned mess!"_ Marie just sighed and hung her head, pulling a hand down her face. _"So what happened?"_

"We got to the outside of this place and just found it on fire!" Ritsuka said, appearing behind Eil. "We had to fight a bunch of zombies and then the wyverns showed up."

" _Well there goes that avenue then."_ Marie muttered, biting her thumbnail as she grumbled. _"Then we'll have to move on from here. I'll contact you again in several hours for a status update. Out."_

The call ended with that, Eil sighing as he lowered his arm, looking over as he noticed Jeanne staring out over the now smoldering ruins with a melancholy expression.

"It was most likely "me" who was behind this." The saint said, gripping her banner's pole tightly.

"Are you sure? It's probably too soon to conclude that." Mashu said, Jeanne shaking her head.

"No, I'm sure of this, I can tell. There's just one thing I don't understand…" Jeanne murmured, a sigh leaving her as she turned towards the direction Orleans was no doubt in. "How much do you have to hate others to wreak such havoc? I can't understand it…"

"Some people don't do it out of hate." Eil stated, scanning the ruins before him. "Some people do it out of boredom, or because their minds are so broken it's the only thing that brings them joy. Some out of madness, and others desperation. But hate is a special kind of emotion… it's consuming, like a monster with an unending hunger. A bottomless void with no way to be filled."

"And there's some people who simply desire destruction above all else. People who only wish to see the world burn." Artoria added, and she was notably still at the ready. "Master, we should prepare: There's Servants closing in on us."

"Well that was certainly fast!" Eil grumbled, opening up the comm line again. "Director, we got trouble! Servants are on the way. Can you narrow down how many there are?"

" _Let me… what the… five?! Yes… five Servants are heading for your location. What is… they're so fast! Are they Riders? I would suggest running, but it's not like we're lacking for numbers ourselves after all. But… damn, would it be wise?"_ Marie's face was troubled, but, opposed to the more cautious view, the Servants didn't look ready to run at all.

"I won't run! Even I fighting is unwise, I at least want to find out their intentions!" Jeanne said, and Eil nodded.

"I agree with that. We need information right? And the enemy is coming right to it. That's as good an information source as any!" Eil said, cracking his knuckles, earning a sigh from Marie.

" _Fine! But be cautious!"_

Eil and Ritsuka nodded at that and the line cut. It only took a few more minutes of waiting for them to show up. Five figures all in quick succession to one another: A man garbed in black with hair and skin like chalk carrying a spear. A woman with silver hair and a mask concealing part of her face garbed in red. A young woman dressed like a saint herself with violet hair, carrying a staff with a prominent cross atop it. An elegantly dressed individual with a rapier in hand, who's looks were androgynous. And leading them, was a girl the spitting image of Jeanne, only garbed in pure black attire, with skin pale as snow, off-white hair, and eyes that glared a sinister shade of gold.

"Ugh…" Jeanne gasped, and the other her looked mildly surprised.

"What on earth… who knew? Who knew such a thing could happen?" The dark Jeanne murmured, Jeanne tensely quiet, the other one scanning over the crowd before her, and a smirk broke out on the dark girl's face as she gave a chuckle. "Could someone pour some water on me? This is bad. It's awful. I think I'm really going to lose it. It's so funny I might die from laughing!"

" _Let's see the lineup here…"_ Eil thought, images going across his vision as he scanned the Servants in front of him while Dark Jeanne spoke. _"Berserker-Lancer huh? Modified Class due to an altered summoning… same for the rest too. Assassin, Rider, and Saber in order… and as for the other Jeanne, Ruler, of course… huh, weirdly I was expecting an Avenger."_

"Take a look Gilles!" Dark Jeanne laughed, Eil raising a brow. "Look at that pathetic girl! What is she a wimp? A mouse? A worm!" then the dark girl's look changed to one of disgust. "Either way they're all the same! So puny I can't even muster any sympathy! Ah – truly a country that can only cling to "me"… comparing them to mice is an insult to mice."

"Hey we already beat one of these Singularities! Who're you calling less than mice?!" Ritsuka snapped, Eil promptly holding her back by her cloak's hood.

"Down puppy, no need to get steamed. She's just blowing hot air." Eil said, a smirk on, which immediately earned him a glare from Dark Jeanne.

"I don't like you." Dark Jeanne growled. "Hey Gilles, what do… oh, right we didn't bring him. My bad."

"You… who are you?" Jeanne murmured, her other self scoffing.

"I could be asking you the same thing!" The other said, sighing. "Right, as a leader, let me answer that. I am Jeanne d'Arc, the saint devoted to France. The other "me." Good enough?"

"What? That's nonsense! You're no saint, just as I'm no saint! But… that is already a thing of the past." Jeanne murmured, though the grip on her flag was still tight. "More importantly – why did you attack this town?"

"Why you ask? As the same Jeanne d'Arc I thought for sure you would understand. Are you stupid now that your alignment has changed?" Dark Jeanne asked, a mocking smirk coming to her face. "The reason I attacked this city? What a foolish question. It's obvious isn't it? It is for the sole purpose of destroying France. I am, after all, a Servant. Politically, economically, all these methods take too long. Is it not better to simply physically crush everything?"

"Such foolishness!" Jeanne snapped, the other her scoffing.

"Such foolishness? The foolish ones are us, Jeanne d'Arc. Why did you want to save this country? Why did you want to bring salvation to these people? All the while knowing they were the ones who spit on and betrayed us?!" The other Jeanne's expression turned to rage.

"That is…"

"I will be fooled no longer! I will be betrayed no longer! I no longer hear the voice of the Lord." Dark Jeanne growled. "The fact that I can no longer hear His voice, means that He no longer blesses this country. So, I will destroy it in accordance with the Lord's grief. I will cut away all the bad seeds at the roots. So long as-"

"Okay I'mma step in here." Eil said, clearing his throat, drawing the glare of Dark Jeanne to him. "All this talk is plenty amusing and while I'd love to see two sides of Jeanne d'Arc argue about things, and I can tell you have quite a lot to say… I think I can affirm we have business."

"And just who are _you_ huh?" Dark Jeanne demanded, aiming her own banner at Eil, who chuckled as he shut an eye.

"Eilwyn Zima la Zvezda, at your service _mademoiselle._ All kidding aside, I'm one of the last Masters remaining. And to be incredibly blunt your actions here are part of the reason the Greater History of Man is currently, pardon my French, extremely _fucked."_ Eil stated, Dark Jeanne just glaring at him.

"And I should care because? That sounds exactly like the kind of thing I _want_ to happen." The girl said, Eil nodding as he folded his arms.

"Agreed… but that is why we're here right now. You wanna destroy man, and it's my job to save them. Fundamentally speaking my goal and yours aren't aligned. Now I would ask you to just hand over the Holy Grail you have so we can be done with this but of course it ain't gonna that easy now." Eil's tone was remarkably blasé despite the situation at hand. Maybe it was because he knew he had enough Servants at his back, but Ritsuka was also tugging at his shirt and wordlessly trying to get him to stop.

"I'm wondering if I should just kill this noisy bug…" Dark Jeanne muttered, Eil moving back as flames suddenly licked up near him, Ritsuka yelping.

"What the heck?! How did that happen?! Is that something she did!?" Ritsuka yelled, Eil only chuckling in amusement. "Eil you're taking this way too well!"

"I'm used to things being this way." Eil murmured, though Jeanne looked a lot more concerned about matters, and from the attempted move on their Master, Eil's own Servants were ready to get fighting themselves as well.

"Are you really "me"?" Jeanne asked, her Dark Self scoffing again.

"I've played my part so well for you so clearly, but you still have doubts?" Dark Jeanne scoffed again, a twisted laugh coming from her. "This rage is an ugly justice. It's not that you cannot understand, you just don't even have the will to try."

"Ah that word. I love hearing people throw the word justice around." Eil sniped, getting glared at again. "Justice is fun, isn't it? You can bend it, twist it, even pound it into dust but it takes whatever form you want it to. It's probably the greatest question of humanity, or at least one of them: What _is_ justice?... Personally speaking I find justice to be a bunch of shit. Just a word people throw around to try and make themselves seem like the moral victor."

"Now I know I don't like you." Dark Jeanne muttered, though by now Eil had also dropped whatever blasé affability he'd been projecting up to now. "Well, it doesn't matter. I've seen "myself" and now know the nature of what she is. Neither a Ruler or Jeanne d'Arc, just some leftover residue that I threw away. If you were the same existence and Class such as I, I should have felt something. But you are worthless, little more than a ghost with a misguided effort to recreate history."

"Are you just here to throw around insults, are for an actual battle?" Artoria said, speaking up and stepping forward. "I've heard about enough from you. You say Ruler is but a ghost, but then what are you? You're certainly no proper Servant either, that much I can tell. You're tainted, a Servant of an irregular kind. Perhaps a more accurate thing to call you would be Jeanne Alter perhaps?"

"Alter?" Ritsuka murmured, then her eyes went wide. "Wait, so is she like the Saber Mashu and I fought in Fubuki?"

"Tch… I'm getting sick of hearing you people. Berserk Lancer, Berserk Assassin, why not fight them huh? They have numbers but your Berserk states should cover that." Jeanne Alter seemed all too confident in that as the black garbed man and the masked woman stepped forward. Eil however was thinking this was a stupid idea for her to suddenly execute. "You're getting tired of small prey aren't you? Rejoice, they are strong. Among all the Servants I summoned, your lust for blood is the strongest. You exist to crush the brave. Devour them to your heart's content."

"Very well." The Lancer spoke as he spun his spear into a readied grip. "Now I will have your blood."

"Not so fast "my king." I would like to partake of their flesh and blood, as well as their insides." Assassin said, Lancer chuckling.

"And their souls? Who would get their souls?"

"How about none of the above? Anastasia!" Eil shouted, and immediately on command as Eil and Ritsuka shot back behind the Servants, Lancer and Assassin were forced to move back as a gust of icy wind came forth from Viy as Anastasia held the doll out. Cu was quick to follow the lead with bursts of fire coming from runes he had formed prior, separating Lancer and Assassin from one another.

"So how do we run this now?" Ritsuka asked, Eil humming as he quickly scanned the situation, then snapping his fingers as it came to mind.

"Got it! Artoria, Jeanne, take Lancer! Mashu, Lily, go for Assassin! Anastasia, Cu, keep the pressure on from here!" Eil ordered, the Servants giving affirmatives and splitting off to take their ordered opponents. Artoria's hidden sword lunged for Lancer, who narrowly managed to dodge the hidden blade, his coat taking the damage instead, his spear meeting the spear-tip of Jeanne's flag as she stabbed it forward. Assassin was quicker to try and retreat as Lily, while less skilled than her elder-self no doubt, managed to quickly come close to making clear shots, and the retaliation from Assassin was quickly blocked by Mashu, who's shield wasn't a slouch of a weapon either. "Peh… I really don't like having to sit back, but there's not much more we as Masters can do but support."

"Yeah." Ritsuka murmured, gripping her left wrist. "But, that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do!"

As the fight continued on, it became readily apparent that perhaps it had indeed been a bad idea for Jeanne Alter to pit two Servants against six. Artoria's fast sword was keeping Lancer on the defensive, and Jeanne's own strikes didn't leave much room for him to retaliate either even when he lashed out with spikes produced merely from jabbing his spear into the dirt. A quick flash of Artoria's sword was narrowly dodged, but Lancer took a cut across the face for the effort, and Anasatasia and Cu continuing to support with their attacks from the back only added to the pressure.

Assassin wasn't any better off either. No doubt thanks to her Class not being well geared for a direct fight. Attacking with waves of blood, slashing with the claw like nails of her hand, of all things summoning an iron maiden to charge her enemies. Lily was nimble enough to avoid most of those attacks, and with Mashu helping her, there was a solid defensive wall that blocked the ones that came out as Lily dodged. The assault also forced Assassin back, she and Lancer moving away from the relentless Servants.

"Hahahaha! Seems we have some powerful foes against us!" Lancer laughed, looking thrilled by things, though Assassin seemed far less impressed, despite arguably looking the more wounded of the two.

"You couldn't even finish off a weak girl?" Assassin scoffed. "I wonder if you felt sympathy for her. Kindness doesn't suit you. It's not very monster-like, Dracul."

"Huh? Wait, like Dracula?" Ritsuka asked, Eil nodding.

"To be more accurate, Lancer's identity is Vlad Tepes III, the legendary king of Wallachia, modern day Romania. Or as the legends go, Dracul, the Lord Impaler." Eil stated.

"Who knew you'd reveal my True Name in front of others. I'm extremely disappointed." Vlad stated, a subtle glare being aimed at Assassin.

"I actually had those figured out ages ago." Eil said, tugging open his right eye, revealing it had taken on a new look, an intricate pattern like a bloomed flower in the iris. "Mystic Eyes of Revelation, handy thing I got from my mom. The Assassin's True Name is Elisabeth Bathory, though as Carmilla instead, another person whose legends began attributing her to vampires. Rider is Saint Martha, and the Saber with you is Chevalier d'Eon… not saying that full name."

"A Master who can identify Servants? What a curious case… ah wait, something about you is familiar." Vlad said, humming, then chuckling again. "Ah I see now! Yes, I know those eyes well! The eyes of those Stargazers who seem to dig their heels in wherever they go. I believe quite the troublesome individual has shown up in this battle."

"Ehhh?! He knows who you are?!" Ritsuka yelped, Eil chuckling himself.

"I'd be more surprised if he didn't. Quite the honor then, to know my bloodline is recognized by King Vlad himself!" Eil then lurched as something suddenly hit the back of his head, and the sudden chill down his back from it clued him in to who it was. "Ana! What was that for?!"

"Don't go praising the foe's approval." Anastasia coolly said, Eil just blinking before clearing his throat to get his composure back.

"Tch, so the rats actually have some bite to them do they?" Jeanne Alter grumbled, an annoyed scowl present on her face. "Well, no matter. There's still plenty of ways to deal with you now. I wonder though, how long can you Masters keep your Servants going before they fizzle out? Should we by chance show how far that…" and then suddenly, she was cut off by, of all things, a crystal rose flying through the air and embedding itself in the ground between the two forces. "What?"

"My question exactly." Eil muttered. "Now I'm wondering how much weirder this is all going to get…"

* * *

 **A/N**

 **So I am going through a process of figuring out how to chop things in the Singularities down to streamline the process more cause… damn some of them can feel padded out at times. I also got some idea to make things more interesting with the Masters as well… but that'll come about during London. Hehehehe.**


End file.
